


Bedside Manner

by DancingGrimm



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Arguing, Casual Sex, Drunkenness, Hair care, Happy Ending, Heavy is sad of no Medic fucks, Homophobic Language, Humor, I'm a huge sap, Light Angst, M/M, Massage, Medic is a beast, Minor eye-scream, Monopoly (Board Game), Multiple Pairings, Oral Sex, Relationship Talk, Riding, Rough Sex, Sex Toys, Unrequited Crush, Vibrators, fuck buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-30 19:33:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8546302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingGrimm/pseuds/DancingGrimm
Summary: Medic has rather a high sex drive and no compunctions about sleeping casually with his team-mates.Except Heavy.Who has a crush on him.And is just getting more and more envious.





	1. Hormone Balance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Scout has been having trouble vith sleeping, among other things,” Medic said, only a little breathless. “Ve are taking care of that, ja?” and he patted Scout on the flank affably.
> 
> “I can't believe I let you stick your dick in me,” Scout gasped.
> 
> “Vould you like me to take it out?”
> 
> “No! Fuck! Did I say anythin' that sounded like 'take it out'?”

Heavy flinched at the way his knock on the infirmary door echoed around the empty waiting area, ringing unpleasantly in his ears.

 

No answer.

 

He stood still for a moment and listened carefully; it was nearly ten thirty at night, and the base was quiet but for a faint clunking sound from the pipes that suggested somebody was having a late shower. Most of the lights were off in the corridors and in the brightly painted waiting area, leaving a dim glow that should have been soothing, but which made Heavy feel all the more conspicuous, standing there at the door in his pyjamas.

 

He normally would have been asleep at this time, but the so-called 'respawn hangover' that his team mates often complained of – which he had always considered himself fortunate to be unaffected by – seemed to have struck. He had a headache

 

He had been taken out in the early afternoon, when a large metal girder that had formed part of the central structure of one of the mill buildings had fallen on him, sent flying due to a truly extraordinary explosion caused by the enemy Pyro picking a fight with RED's Demoman at an inopportune moment. Inopportune for all concerned, as Demo had woken in Respawn right alongside Heavy, and he had no doubt that the other team's Pyro, Engineer, and possibly their Soldier as well, had found themselves in the same situation.

 

Anyway, it seemed that a solid impact to the top of the skull from roughly a quarter of a ton of steel was, in fact, enough to give Heavy a headache. It wasn't terribly painful, but it had lingered all afternoon, had sapped his appetite at dinner time, and now, despite his attempts to sleep after having retired early, it was keeping him awake.

 

He just needed some painkillers, that was all. He pushed the door of the infirmary open a few inches and peered inside.

 

No sign of the Medic.

 

The lamp on the doctor's desk was lit, and that and the soft glow from the recharging Medigun were the only sources of light. Heavy stepped further into the room, letting the door swing shut behind him, and was immediately swarmed by the doves, cooing and fluttering around him. He was too out of sorts to put any real effort into shooing them away, and so simply tolerated them landing on his shoulders, little clawed feet pricking at his skin through his pyjama sleeves.

 

“Where is your Papa, eh?” he asked them, and they goggled their beady black eyes at him and cooed some more. It was actually kind of soothing.

 

It was a surprise to find the place empty. Medic was almost as bad as the Engineer for staying up all night, tinkering. He could go to his room and look for him there, maybe...but then, it occurred to Heavy that he didn't actually know where in the base the doctor's private room was.

 

He took another step into the infirmary, doves shuffling around on his shoulders, and his eyes fell on a white rectangle of paper lying on the examination table. A note. It had clearly been placed in that spot with purpose, as anyone entering the room would be immediately facing the table and would have noticed it. Heavy picked it up and squinted at it in the dim light, working past the hurdles of the Roman alphabet and the doctor's terrible handwriting to read the message.

 

' _ Have gone to make a house call. _

_ Can be found in Scout's room in event of emergency. _ '

 

What could be wrong with Scout? Heavy put the note back in its place and gently shooed the birds off his shoulders. He considered searching for painkillers himself, but the German writing on the labels of all the drawers, and the memory of the doctor's massive argument with Demo after the latter had taken a bottle of calamine from the infirmary without permission (and without getting his allergic reaction properly seen to), turned him away from that course. Slipping through the door as quickly as possible to make sure that none of the doves escaped into the hall with him, he set off for Scout's room. It wasn't far, and though this wasn't exactly an emergency, the doctor usually had basics like pain killers in his bag, which he would no doubt have taken with him.

 

In the evening dimness, Heavy could see the thin lines of light edging Scout's door as he approached it and, stopping outside, he faintly heard a voice coming from in the room, too quiet to make out the words. He paused, hand raised, before knocking. Should he? Perhaps Scout had some terrible, traumatic problem which he wouldn't want Heavy to know about. Perhaps his treatment involved something embarrassing, like having to be stripped naked.

On the other hand, seven times that day Scout had made mean comments about Heavy's weight. Not just the Heavy on the other team, but him too. Scout could go hang.

 

Heavy rapped on the door and heard Scout make an uncertain noise from within, interrupted by the Medic calling out “Come in!”

 

Heavy pushed the door open.

 

And almost slammed it shut again.

 

Except that he had frozen. Couldn't move a muscle.

 

Scout  _ was _ naked.

 

So was Medic, mostly. And though he was sure somebody could have formulated a case for their activities having a medical purpose, Heavy wouldn't have listened to it.

 

Scout was on all fours on the bed, skin flushed and shiny with sweat, while the Medic, kneeling behind him, pressed his hips to Scout's ass.

 

“Shut the door behind you, Heavy,” the doctor commanded calmly. “Are you alright?”

 

“...Da,” Heavy replied, only becoming aware that his feet had carried him several steps into the room when he noticed that he had to reach back quite a way to shut the door. “What...what is Doktor doing?”

 

Scout raised his flushed face enough to give Heavy a vicious glare, while Medic let out a chuckle. “Surely Heavy, you are a man of the vorld. It is obvious, no?” and he drew his hips back enough for Heavy to see quite clearly that, yes, he was  _ fucking _ Scout.

 

And it seemed that Heavy's presence in the room was not going to keep him from  _ continuing _ to fuck Scout, because as soon as Medic had given him a chance to look, he thrust his cock (long and red and smoothly curving) all the way back into Scout's ass, making the young man drop his head down between his straining arms and whine in the back of his throat.

 

“If it is not an urgent matter, then I vill continue here, alright?” Medic said, as he thrust again, a little faster, and Heavy nodded. “You can stay if you like, I vill deal with you next.” Heavy nodded again because that...that sounded like a very good plan. He was staring at Medic, and he knew he was staring, but he couldn't have torn his eyes away if his life depended on it.

 

He saw Medic every day, every single day for all the long months they'd been here, and they spent so much of their time while working, and an increasing amount of their downtime, together. And he had never  _ imagined _ Medic like this.

For a start, he was wearing the least amount of clothing Heavy had ever seen him in. His sensible clothes were strewn all over the floor, apart from his tie which draped like a streamer over the corner of the mattress. He was dressed only in his white singlet undershirt and his dress shirt, fastened by a single button in the centre of his chest, both of them pushed up at the bottom to bare his soft, hairy stomach, and sliding off his strong, square shoulders at the top. His sleeves were rolled up, like he only usually wore them when he was performing a surgical procedure. His sleek hair was ruffled and his forehead damp with sweat. He looked...he looked like a completely different man to the one Heavy knew.

He looked stunning.

 

And he must have been doing a very good job of fucking Scout (he was fucking  _ Scout _ !) because the youth was moaning and shuddering vigorously as the doctor thrust into him, and Heavy could see streaks of semen already drying on the bedcovers beneath him. How long had they been doing this for?

 

He could hear his pulse in his ears, thumping loudly. He was quite sure he was erect and that his pyjama bottoms must have been tenting out embarrassingly, but he couldn't bring himself to look because that would have meant dragging his eyes away from the spectacle in front of him.

 

“Why is...” he heard himself say, and then trailed off, not certain what exactly he wanted to ask.

 

“Scout has been having trouble vith sleeping, among other things,” Medic said, only a little breathless. “Ve are taking care of that, ja?” and he patted Scout on the flank affably.

 

“I can't believe I let you stick your dick in me,” Scout gasped.

 

“Vould you like me to take it out?”

 

“No! Fuck! Did I say anythin' that sounded like 'take it out'?”

 

Medic chuckled brightly, and rolled his eyes at Heavy, as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.

 

“One more, and ve vill call it a good night's vork, eh?” Medic asked Scout, and Scout's reply was reduced to a burbling noise as the doctor twisted his hips in a way that made him tremble all over.

 

“One more?” Heavy asked. “How many...uh...”

 

“He has come twice so far,” Medic replied, for all the world as if he was not discussing sex with a third party during the actual act. “Three is a nice round number for this, I think.”

 

“Yuh,” Scout grunted, sounding pretty agreeable, and he tried to reach down to grab at his own cock, only to have his hand slapped away by the Doctor.

 

“I said  _ no _ ,” Medic scolded, pushing Scout forwards abruptly, so he dropped down onto his elbows, sticking his backside up higher.

 

“What about you?” Heavy asked. “How many, uh...” Why did he always lose his English when he was horny?

 

“Ah, I have this,” Medic said, and pulled almost all the way out of Scout's body, gesturing Heavy closer to look at his groin. Half horrified, Heavy moved a step nearer to him and looked. There was a piece of what looked like thick rubber, or possibly treated leather, wrapped around the base of the doctor's penis and looped around his testicles. It must have been keeping him from orgasm, though Heavy wondered at his cheerful attitude despite this. How much time must it have taken to get Scout off two, nearly three, times? Scout was  _ young _ , of course, but still.

 

Scout whined and squirmed, trying to shove his hips back, get Medic back inside him, until Medic pushed back into him firmly. All of a sudden, the doctor's whole attention was on Scout, and he started screwing him with intent, obviously doing a very good job of it if the increase in frequency and volume of Scout's moans was any indication. Heavy was so aroused he felt dizzy and the front of his pyjama pants was getting damp, but he couldn't do anything about it, couldn't tear his eyes away, couldn't make himself move. Scout was writhing now, a red flush trickling down his body, ribs visible as he heaved for breath. He clawed his hands into the sheets and pressed his forehead into the mattress, seething and groaning through his teeth. Behind him, the Medic looked almost stoic, totally focused on his task, his grip on Scout's hips steady and careful, his own body ignored.

 

Scout thumped his fist on the mattress and let out a loud, broken sob, half muffled into the bed.

 

“Want help?” Heavy heard himself ask, and wondered what part of his brain had decided that that was a good idea.

 

Medic gave him a startled look at the same time that Scout yelped out an affirmative, and Heavy stepped close again, reached a hand underneath Scout's quivering body and let the boy thrust against it. He couldn't quite wrap his hand around Scout's cock in this position, his fingers were too thick, but Scout didn't seem to care, all too happy to shove his hot, sticky cock into the shallow crease between Heavy's middle and ring fingers. He let out a squawk and suddenly became frenetic, rocking himself violently back and forth between Heavy's hand and the Medic's cock, and it occurred to Heavy to worry that he might hurt himself.

 

But no; Scout let out a gurgling yell, became taught as a wire all along his torso, and released a hard, stuttery squirt of semen into Heavy's palm. After a few moments he sagged, wheezing and whimpering, semen still sputtering out of him. Heavy carefully withdrew his hand and wiped it on the sheet. Scout flopped down onto the bed, hips still held up by Medic, who seemed to be finishing him off, warming him down, with slow, gentle thrusts. Scout moaned happily and nuzzled the side of his face into the sheets.

 

“Danke, Heavy,” the Medic said, in such an ordinary tone of voice that it made Heavy's head spin. He didn't look ordinary though; he was decidedly sweaty now, flushed in the face and all over what Heavy could see of his torso, and his usually roaming, manic gaze was fixed firmly on the middle of Scout's back. Heavy opened his mouth to say something, but Scout beat him to it.

 

“You now, Doc,” the boy said dopily, and Medic frowned at him.

 

“Vas?”

 

Scout weakly reached back and touched the Medic's hip. “C'mon, you too. Finish up.”

 

“Nein, not necessary,” Medic replied, and made to pull out once and for all. But, Heavy thought, Scout had had a good idea for once, and he reached out and set his hand against the small of Medic's back to keep him in place. Medic flinched and turned a glare on him.

 

“You should,” Heavy said.

 

“Yeah, go for it, Doc.”

 

Medic scowled. “You are both being stupid,” he protested. “I am your medical doctor!”

 

“Are fucking him in butt!” Heavy exclaimed. “Is not make much difference now.”

 

“Yeah, like, since when do  _ you _ do ethics?” Scout put in.

 

“You just came,” the Doctor told him. “It won't feel good to you.”

 

Scout caught Heavy's eye and grinned. “Feels pretty damn good right now,” he said. “My ass is invulnerable, Doc. You gotta up your game.”

 

“Take off thing,” Heavy commanded, pointing at Medic's crotch, and Medic sighed and rolled his eyes as if they were both inconveniencing him. All the same though, when Heavy gave him room to do so, he pulled out and tugged the strip of rubber from around his genitals. Scout reached back and grabbed Medic's thigh and, still looking grumpy as a kicked cat, Medic carefully pushed back into him.

 

Heavy didn't know if it was the lack of the rubber, or the different context, but once he got going, Medic didn't look at all detached any more.

 

Heavy took a step back from the bed and stared at him, he couldn't help it. Medic's legs, long and powerful, were working harder now, his thighs and buttocks flexing with every thrust. His large hands were cupped around Scout's skinny hips with confident firmness, fingers pressing into the flesh. Under the layer of middle-aged-spread softness on his stomach, Heavy could make out the way the sturdy muscles of his abdomen clenched and pulled as he moved. His eyes were screwed shut, his breath was becoming short, little staccato sounds escaping with every exhalation.

 

“Fuck's sake, just jerk it already,” Scout said tiredly, and it was only when Heavy looked at Scout and noticed that Scout was looking at  _ him _ , at his crotch, that he realised he had cupped one of his hands around his own hard cock.

 

Embarrassing, but now that Scout had brought it to everyone's attention, he wasn't going to let the opportunity go by.

 

He tugged the drawstring of his pyjama bottoms loose and pushed the front of them down far enough that he could pull his cock out. Scout cursed again at the sight of it, but Heavy ignored him and wrapped his hand around it tightly. He let his eyes run over the Doctor's flushed skin, his handsome face, his pumping hips, his legs, his buttocks, and yes, over Scout's lean, smooth body too, and he slid his hand up the shaft of his cock and felt a little shock, let out a blurt of noise, when he realised how little it was going to take to make himself come.

 

He took a big leap closer to orgasm when the Doctor started making real noises, hard grunts in the back of his throat, a dry gasp every few breaths, and Scout decided he wasn't too tired to help out and started shoving back against him, gritting his teeth and muttering vague encouragement, “yeah, Doc, yeah, do it, yeah”. Heavy gripped himself tightly, stroking himself as slowly as he could bear, feeling his balls squeeze up and heat beginning to roll around inside him.

 

Finally, Medic shuddered hard, curved his body forwards over Scout's until his forehead almost touched the boy's back, a low groan rising out of his throat, hips pumping in brisk little thrusts. Seeing that,  _ hearing _ that, Heavy felt the welcome surge of heat and pleasure rush through him, sharp and fast, spilling semen onto the bedclothes and over Scout's flank.

 

After a few moments of quiet, Medic knelt up, sighed deeply, and carefully pulled out, patting Scout's hip as he did so. Scout twisted around and looked pointedly at the mess Heavy had left on him, then turned and glared.

 

“Sorry,” Heavy muttered, trying not to stare at Medic's mostly naked body as he got off the bed.

 

“How'd you ever get that thing inside'a anybody, anyhow?” Scout asked, pointing at his crotch.

 

“Is not so difficult.”

 

Scout made a dismissive noise and carefully rolled until he could lie on his side. Tutting, Heavy tucked himself back into his pyjama pants and reached over to slide his arm under Scout and lift him a little. He managed to pull the bedclothes out from under him, then laid him back down and drew the sheets up around him. The boy was covered in sweat and semen, but he was clearly worn out; by the time Heavy had tucked the sheets up to his chin, he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. There was no way he'd stay awake long enough to put up with them cleaning him, and if they sent him to have a shower he'd probably pass out and drown. Might as well just let him sleep sticky.

 

“He'll be all right, ve can leave him,” the Doctor's voice said softly at Heavy's shoulder, and he turned to look at him. In the half-minute that he had been out of Heavy's field of vision, the doctor had managed to perform some sort of Spy-like feat of quick-change and now looked as neat as a new pin. He had smoothed his hair back into place and wiped the sweat from his face and neck. His shirt was refastened and the waistcoat buttoned over it covered most of the creases. Instead of his usual jodhpurs and boots, he wore well pressed tweed trousers, his necktie now hanging out of one pocket, and had grey checked house slippers on his feet. Had it not been for the flush in his cheeks and the lingering sweat patches under his armpits, he would have looked like the father character from one of those dreary American sitcoms.

 

Heavy opened his mouth to ask him...what? Why are you here? Is Scout your lover? Why couldn't he sleep?

 

Before he could decide what he wanted to ask, Medic leaned past him and switched off the lamp on Scout's night stand, then stepped back and beckoned Heavy towards the door. Heavy followed, glancing back at Scout, who was by now deeply asleep. Medic opened the door and motioned Heavy to leave before him, then switched off the overhead light and stepped out into the corridor, closing the door quietly.

 

“I imagine you have questions,” he said in an undertone. He spoke with the efficient, clipped tone he used when explaining bits of science that Heavy didn't understand.

 

Heavy just nodded.

 

Medic gave a casual one-shouldered shrug. “You have noticed that Scout has been a little off his game the last, oh, two veeks or so?”

 

Heavy considered it. Yes, actually, he had. He'd been making more mistakes than usual, and getting defensive and irritable instead of just brushing them off. “Why is this?” Medic had started walking, and Heavy took a couple of big strides to catch up with him, then walked at his side.

 

“Vell, like I said, he has been having difficulty sleeping. But as you might imagine, it's for a foolish reason. He vas a virgin.”

 

“...What?”

 

“I don't mean that he vasn't sleeping because he vas a virgin,” Medic clarified with a chuckle. “He had decided that he vanted to lose his virginity and that, until he did, he vouldn't masturbate. Maybe he thought it vould help to discipline himself, maybe it was just magical thinking. But apparently, previous to this decision, he must have been masturbating a tremendous amount, because the hormone imbalance caused by the sudden lack kept him from sleeping properly.”

 

Heavy frowned. “How did you learn this?”

 

“Oh, I took him to task on the matter earlier today and he ended up telling me all about it. I told him I'd go to his room, and once there I offered to explain to him the effect hormones have on the body and how physical stimulation affects their balance and...vell, things escalated.”

 

“To you fucking him in butt?”

 

“Ja. Not to put too fine a point on it.”

 

Heavy tried to formulate a response to this, but all thoughts on the matter failed when he realised that it was a perfect example of the way Medic's mind worked;

 

_ 'You get shot at a lot? Vell then, let's put this implant in your heart and ve'll see about making you bullet proof. It may take a few tries, but don't vorry; I have spare hearts aplenty in the refrigerator.' _

 

_ 'Vhat do you mean, some people don't like needles? Vell now, I vonder how the enemy vould react to a gun that fired syringes. Stay here, I need to talk to the Engineer. I'll put your ankle back together vhen I return.' _

 

_ 'Your sexually frustrated hormonal imbalances are keeping you from sleeping? Das ist kein problem! Strip down and I'll fuck you into a state of exhaustion. Two birds vith one stone, ja?' _

 

Heavy shook his head. Medic was...odd. And yet, he liked him. He liked him very much, in fact.

 

A few months ago, when they'd been travelling between bases on a small private jet, Heavy had fallen asleep in his seat. Medic had been sitting next to him and, after maybe an hour or so of slumber, disturbed by dreams of one of his sisters nagging him about her hair, he opened his eyes to find the plane cabin barely lit, and that he had slipped sidewards in his sleep so that his head was now resting on Medic's shoulder. Medic was asleep, as were most of their team, Heavy could tell by the breathing he could hear, the breaths he could feel against his bare scalp. He'd lifted his head and looked at the Doctor's calm face and...yes. He liked him very much. He liked his fierce intelligence, his energy, his drive, even his vicious streak. Heavy had sat in the dark of the plane cabin, staring at the Doctor's wonderfully attractive face in silence, for the rest of the flight.

 

And if he'd thought the man was attractive before, this evening had brought a whole new appreciation for him.

 

“Trouble sleeping,” he murmured.

 

“Ja. I dislike giving out sleeping pills if there is a reasonable alternative,” Medic said lightly. “They can be habit forming, and sometimes have odd side effects.”

 

They were nearly back to Heavy's room by now. He could drop the matter. Or he could say something.

 

“I have trouble sleeping. Sometimes,” he said.

 

Medic stopped short and looked up at him, staring coolly into his eyes. Silence for a long moment. Then;

 

“I'll see about some sleeping pills for you,” Medic said. And without another word he turned and walked away, along the corridor that led back to the infirmary.

 

Heavy stood in the dim hallway, confused, the patch of wetness on his pyjamas sticking to him coldly. He'd never been turned down so utterly flat before.

 

At least his headache was gone.

 

He went into his room and locked the door behind him, gave himself a quick wash at the basin in the bathroom, then put on fresh pyjamas and got into bed. Lying there in the dark, he told himself sternly not to be stupid about this. So he was attracted to the Medic. So the Medic didn't want him. It wasn't the end of the world.

 

Red-haired women and shapely-legged men. He always made a fool of himself over them.

 

He closed his eyes and thought about Sasha until he fell asleep.

 

::

 

The next day, Scout was back on form, cocky and energetic and flinging himself all over the battlefield, like nothing had ever been wrong.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been in the works for absolutely ages, and for some reason I decided to leave it until now, when the fandom is full of tumbleweed and old cans, to post it.  
> I hope you enjoy it. I'll update the pairings as I add each one, in each new chapter.  
> As always, I adore feedback, so if you have time to leave any, I'd appreciate it.


	2. Spare Parts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demo had gone from having never even thought of another man with lust in mind, to looking straight at another man’s erection while preparing himself to put his own erection up that man’s bum.
> 
> Jesus, every time he came by the infirmary something fucking weird happened.

You could always tell who was using the tannoy before they began speaking. The one from Miss Pauling's office clicked, the one from the surveillance room whistled, Spy's microphone made little buzzing noises, and the one from the medical lab made a high pitched whine that put everyone's teeth on edge.

 

Demo was just sitting down across the table from Soldier when the whining noise came from the speakers and made him wince.

 

“Demo, come to the infirmary right away. And bring your eyeball,” the Doctor's voice demanded over the whine.

 

Scout looked up from his hand of cards and wrinkled his nose. “You still got that other eyeball? Like, in jar or something?”

 

“I...I think 'e means the one still in ma head,” Demo replied, feeling a chill run down his back. What the hell was this going to be about?

 

Heavy glanced up at Demo uncomfortably, then at Scout. “You want some of us go with you?” he asked.

 

Oh god, he was tempted to say yes. Doctors had always weirded him out, even before he met the bloody Medic who giggled during surgery and nearly lost his fucking lung under the operating table. But no. Whatever it was, he was going to have to take it like a man.

 

“Nah, I'll be fine,” he replied, and headed for the door.

 

Heavy nodded as he passed the table. “You want me come check on you later?”

 

There was another shrill whine, and the Doctor's voice rang out; “Demo! Schnell! Don't make me come and find you.”

 

“Ah...yeah. Yeah, give it about...”

 

“Half hour ought to do it,” Soldier offered.

 

“Yeah, that'll do.”

 

Heavy huffed and nodded again, then settled back in his chair and carefully neatened his hand of cards.

 

::

 

The infirmary door squeaked a little as he pushed it open, which put Demo’s teeth on edge almost as badly as the microphone. On hearing it, the Medic looked up from the odds and ends of glassware he'd been arranging on a workbench, and smiled broadly.

 

“Ah, gut. Go and sit on the table and ve can begin.”

 

Demo stepped into the room and peered up into the rafters. No doves. That was usually a bad sign. After the Scout incident, Miss Pauling told Medic he had to cage them if he was going to do anything invasive.

 

“Begin what, exactly?”

 

“I'm going to examine your eye,” Medic replied brightly, shooing him towards the table.

 

“Yeah, but what  _ for _ ?” Demo pressed. He rested his bum and his hands on the edge of the table, but didn't pull himself up onto it just yet.

 

“Oh, nothing much,” Medic replied, casually. “I just vant to get a better idea of its dimensions, its mobility...and to take samples.”

 

Before Demo could ask for further specifics, the Medic suddenly bent, grabbed Demo's legs, and hefted him near-violently up onto the table.

 

“Ach, Jesus, man! Don't do that to me!”

 

Medic shrugged, turned and picked up something off a tray. “The sooner ve get started, the sooner it vill be over,” he replied crisply, and turned back to Demo with that eyelid spreader thing in hand. No way was he drunk enough to deal with that.

 

“Not that. Not that! I fuckin'  _ hate _ that thing!”

 

Medic rolled his eyes and reached for Demo's face all the same, but Demo grabbed the thing off him and, after a moment's struggle, tossed it onto the floor, where it bounced off into the shadows with a series of little chiming noises. Medic huffed.

 

“All right then, if you are going to be a baby about it. I suppose I can use my fingers.”

 

Demo breathed a sigh of relief. The worst thing about that little metal bugger was how cold it was. If there was any way in which the Medic could be said to be a decent doctor, it was that his hands were always warm. Resigning himself to being prodded in the eye (the alternative being to get chased around the base by Medic for an hour or so, and eventually being darted and dragged back to the infirmary unconscious), Demo reclined against the raised backrest of the table and tried not to flinch when the Medic's ungloved fingers peeled his eyelids open.

 

“That's not so bad, ja?”

 

“Just hurry it up,” Demo replied, trying to scowl. He wondered how long he'd been here. Probably not very long, not as long as it seemed. Sooner or later, Heavy would show up, and then the Doc would lose all interest in him and he could escape. He just held on to that thought. Held on to it tight, while Medic swabbed the surface of his eyeball, then did the same to the inside of his eyelid, then his tear duct, and then finally took a very fine syringe and carefully extracted heaven-knew-what from  _ inside _ his eyeball.

 

His one eyeball.

 

The one he needed to be able to see  _ at all _ .

 

Which was now fucking  _ blurry _ .

 

“What the hell 'ave you done, you mad bastard!” Demo cried, slapping his hand protectively over his eye as he sat up.

 

“Has your vision gone a little svimmy? Don't vorry, it will return to normal shortly. Stay there, I must deal vith these samples.”

 

Demo stayed on the table, fuming quietly, his hand still covering his eye up, just in case. He would have liked to have stormed out of the bloody infirmary with his nose in the air, maybe give the bloody doctor a clip round the ear on his way past, but he wasn't sure he could make it to the door without falling over something. Falling over was a big deal in the infirmary, what with all the flasks of chemicals and the sharp edged implements. No, he'd wait and see if his sight came back properly, then storm off.

 

It sounded like the Medic was back at his workbench. He could hear the familiar sounds of samples being smoothed onto microscope slides and the soft little scrapes of cover glasses being put in place. There was something like a jar being opened and then closed, the tinkle of something small being dropped into the sink. It almost made him feel nostalgic for his days in the lab back home.

 

After a little while, the doctor started humming to himself, something lilting and cheerful. Sounded like the sort of records his Mum liked to listen to. He had a feeling it might be Vivaldi. Mum loved a bit of Vivaldi. If he wasn't careful, she'd make him sit and listen to it with her.

 

After what felt like a few minutes, Demo took his hand away from his eye and blinked. With a huge rush of relief, he realised that it was already clearer, getting better the more he blinked, or at least he felt like it was. The Medic was still over at that workbench, staring down the microscope now. There was a large vertical glass tube at one end of the bench with some sort of metal coil in the bottom of it, filled almost to the top with murky greenish liquid. As Demo watched, Medic reached out and picked up a cable that seemed to be attached to the coil through the base of the tube and plugged it into the wall socket. There was a faint sizzling sound from the tube and Medic gave it a pleased look, before turning his attention back to the microscope.

 

“What exactly are you doin', anyway?” Demo asked, part of him dreading the answer.

 

Medic stood up straight and looked over at him with a faint expression of surprise; he'd probably forgotten Demo was there. Then he glanced over the workbench and its contents, before crossing the room back to the table where Demo still lay.

 

“It's an experiment that may benefit you,” he offered with a coy look. “If it vorks as intended, that is.”

 

He reached out and lifted Demo's patch away from his face and peered into the empty socket. Demo waited for him to say something else. And waited. After a minute, the strap of the patch slid up the back of his head and pushed his watchcap up, and he reached up in annoyance to swat the Medic's hand away and pull both patch and cap off his head.

 

“How is it intended to work?” he demanded, as Medic frowned at him. “Yer muckin' about with me  _ face _ , man! Me face! The least you can do is tell me why.”

 

Medic rolled his eyes and folded his arms in front of him, leaning one hip against the side of the table. “I assure you, I have a very good reason not to tell you further details,” he said, in the tone of a man settling in for a long argument. “The fact is, I'm attempting something that has long been theorised about, but has never successfully been achieved. I have no idea if I vill be able to make it vork at all, and I'm almost certain that it vill take me numerous attempts to perfect it.”

 

Demo looked over at the workbench. He couldn’t make head nor tail of the set-up the doc had going over there. Biology had never been his strong suit.

 

“You’re gonnae have to spell it out for me,” he said. “And I damn well want to know, hear?”

 

Medic sighed dramatically. “All right, but I don’t vant you in here bothering me vhile the experiment is ongoing.”

 

“I can tell you with confidence Doctor, I want to spend as little time in this lab as I possibly can.”

 

Weirdly, the Medic reacted to that as if he’d been paid a compliment, showing Demo a sunny smile. “Very vell. I am attempting to cause non-stem cells to replicate in such a fashion as to not only form the individual cell structure, but also to imitate the overall structure of the tissue, and even the organ, from vhich they vere taken.”

 

“...Spell it out in layman’s terms, doc.”

 

Medic smirked at him. “I am trying to create a new eye for you.”

 

“You… wait, really?”

 

“Ja, really!” Medic said brightly, and he turned away from Demo to cross the room, back to his workbench.

 

“It’s purely theoretical vork at this point, or at least, it has been such for many years. But in my position, I am able to experiment in vays that most scientists cannot.”

 

“You mean there’s no ethics committees and shite like that breathin’ down your neck?” Demo asked, sliding off the table.

 

“Exactly.” Medic waved Demo over the join him at the bench and gestured for him to look into the microscope. Demo did so, and saw… well, he knew enough to know that they were cells, though that much was pretty obvious. He had no idea which swab this sample had come from, or if it was maybe even what the doctor had taken in the syringe. 

 

“The eye is an ideal organ to begin vith,” Medic said, clattering things around on the work surface, out of Demo’s field of vision. “There is a fluidity to the tissues that allows a certain amount of guiding, so that the reproducing cells can be lead to mimic a form vithout the supporting structure of other tissues. Do you understand?”

 

“Yeah,” Demo said faintly, lifting his head from the microscope. His mind was swimming. A new eye. It might actually happen!

 

“As I said, it may take me several attempts, but imagine the possibilities if I can perfect the technique!” Medic said. “Even just in our own base, I could-”

 

“Doc,” Demo said, surprised at how low his voice came out. The Medic stopped speaking and looked at him, waiting politely.

 

Demo didn’t know what to say. He wanted to say thank you, to offer encouragement, to express just how much it meant to him that this could really happen, that he could have this in his future to push himself towards. How did you say something like that to a freak like the Medic, though?

 

Maybe there was some cultural thing. What did Germans do? Wait… yes! They kissed each other all the time, didn’t they?

 

“Doc, come ‘ere,” Demo said, and he put his hands on Medic’s shoulders, leaned in, and gave him a firm peck on the lips.

 

He pulled back, hands still on the Medic’s shoulders, to see the other man blinking at him confusedly. What the-

 

Oh shit, it was the  _ French _ that kissed each other, not the Germans. Oh holy fucking shit, he was going to get sawn into bits for this-

 

But before Demo could worry too much about his faux pas, Medic had taken hold of him firmly by the ears and was kissing the hell out of him.

 

Well, that was...it was pretty fuckin’ good, actually. Plenty of tongue and nice soft lips. The fact that it was the  _ Medic’s  _ nice soft lips sort of vanished into the depths of Demo’s mind, tucked away somewhere behind the thought that he hadn’t gotten his end away in about six months.

 

The thought that he’d never so much as looked twice at another man was lost somewhere back there too. Hell with it, he could have a snog if he wanted!

 

By the time he had drawn this sensible conclusion, his arms were wrapped around the Medic’s torso, one hand cupping the back of his head and the other straying dangerously close to his backside. Medic’s hands, meanwhile, were-

 

“Hey! Whoa!”

 

“Vas?” demanded Medic, pulling back a bit. “Vhat is wrong?”

 

Demo looked down to look at the Medic’s hands. There were no longer moving, but had stilled in the act of undoing the flies of Demo’s boiler suit.

 

“What..uh...what exactly are ye doin’ there, doc?” Demo asked, not quite daring to move.

 

The Medic frowned at him, baffled. “I had assumed from your approach that you vanted to engage in sex,” he said bluntly. “If not, then vhy did you kiss me?”

 

“Well, I uh...I mean…” Hell. It’d been easy enough to ignore the fact that he’d been snogging a man when it had just been snogging. But his lips were tingling and his dick was hard, and it was difficult to sort his thoughts into words when Medic was looking at him with impatient annoyance, still holding the sides of Demo’s open zipper in his hands.

 

“Hurry and make up your mind!” Medic demanded. “I’m aroused now. If you aren’t going to fuck me, I’ll have to go and find-”

 

“Whoa, whoa, wait!” Demo said, waving his hands. “Say that again, doc.”

 

The Medic frowned at him, then rolled his eyes and complied. “If you aren’t going to fuck me,” he said deliberately slowly, “then I will have to-”

 

“Yeah,” Demo interrupted. Somehow, someway, hearing Medic curse had him suddenly raring to go. “Yeah, I wanna fuck you.”

 

“Vell all right!” Medic chirped, and he let go of Demo’s clothes to reach into a drawer and grab out a tube. “You don’t have to undress all the vay, unless you particularly vant to,” he said. Then he undid his own trousers, pushed them and his underwear down just enough to bare his arse and groin, and hopped up onto the edge of the counter.

 

Demo had gone from having never even thought of another man with lust in mind, to looking straight at another man’s erection while preparing himself to put his own erection up that man’s bum.

 

Jesus, every time he came by the infirmary something fucking weird happened.

 

Demo was an old hand at hitching his awkward boiler suit around to get his dick out, and he pushed his underwear around too until he was sure it wouldn’t get in the way. When he looked up, Medic was sticking out his right foot at him.

 

“Pull that, vould you?” he said, waggling his foot, and Demo grabbed hold of his boot and pulled it off. Instead of giving him the other foot though, Medic nimbly managed to pull his right leg out of his jodhpurs and underwear, hooked his right arm under his right leg to pull it up to his chest, and pushed two of the fingers of his left hand into his ass.

 

Didn’t seem like he was going to get undressed all the way either, then. 

 

Maybe, Demo thought, it wasn’t just the weird situation. Maybe he did like blokes a bit. Because the sight of Medic fingering himself open, pale face flushing red, thighs twitching as he touched his sweet spot, was really fucking doing it for him. He stepped in close and pulled Medic’s bare leg to rest on his own shoulder, leaned in for another kiss.

 

Medic bit him on the lip and sucked his tongue, and moments later there was a hot hand spreading cool slick onto him. THe kiss broke apart as Demo jerked his head back to drag in a deep breath. Shifting his weight on the counter, Medic adjusted his position a bit, then took off his glasses and dropped them into the sink next to him.

 

“All right, I’m ready,” the doctor said breathily. “Push it in.”

 

Demo took himself in hand and did just that. The Medic’s ass was hot and tight and clinging, his big hands clenched on Demo’s shoulders, his groan of pleasure as Demo pushed into him was deep and husky.

 

Demo’s natural reaction of “oh fucking fuck I’m fucking a fucking man” was drowned out by how massively good it felt. He’d been with a couple of girls who’d let him do them up the bum, but in most cases he’d been too drunk to remember with any real detail, and he was pretty sure none of them had been as rawly enthusiastic as the Medic.

 

He pushed in as deep as Medic’s body would allow on the first stroke, and pulled back and thrust back in as hard as he dared. The fingers on his shoulders dug in hard and the doc tilted his head back and let out a low cry

 

“Ja...ja…” he gasped, and that was way more sexy than it should have been. The doctor leaned back a little way, so Demo could press closer, and he took advantage of it keenly, working his way in to the root.

 

“Kräftig!” Medic gasped.

 

“Y’what?”

 

“Hard! Fich mich hart!”

 

Okay, he got it that time. Snapped his hips back and rammed his way back in, and Medic keened through his teeth and moaned and clawed at Demo’s shoulders, squirming with pleasure so much that Demo thought for a second they were going to end up on the floor. But he didn’t care. Didn’t care, didn’t care, didn’t care, it just felt too damn good.

 

They were rattling the equipment on the counter, Medic’s shoulders bashing against the cabinet doors behind him, Demo’s knees banging on the drawers under the counter, but he didn’t give a flying shit, couldn’t feel the pain over the pleasure. He didn’t care if the whole base heard them, not with Medic’s hand creeping between them, his flesh twitching around Demo’s cock, his head falling back and gurgling cries rising from his throat.

 

Demo clenched his jaw, shut his eye, and came harder than he had in years.

 

His legs were wobbly. He took a minute or so to breathe, trying not to pant all over Medic’s face, then pulled out as gently as he could, staggered back a couple of steps, and managed to get down onto the floor without too much of a tumble.

 

The Medic was still up on the counter, leaning his head and shoulders back against the cabinets, panting noisily. There was a giddy smile on his face and spunk on his waistcoat. He stared at Demo for a long moment, taking in the mess he had made of him. Demo grinned at him, and the Medic grinned back.

 

“That vas very enjoyable,” Medic commented, his voice a little croaky. 

 

“Yeah.”

 

Demo stayed put on the floor, waiting for his bits to calm down. Medic eased himself carefully down from the counter and stretched tentatively. He pulled a handful of paper towels from the dispenser on the wall and unceremoniously wiped his backside clean, then set about rearranging his clothes. Underwear and jodhpurs back on, foot shoved back into boot. He took off his soiled waistcoat and tossed it into a bin which already had at least one bloodstained lab coat in it, then removed his necktie and stuffed it untidily into his pocket, and finally took another paper towel and dabbed the sweat from his neck. 

 

“Vould you like some help?” the doctor asked, once he was spic and span again.

 

“Nah,” Demo replied, and managed to get himself back to his feet after a couple of attempts. Medic rolled his eyes at him and handed him some paper towels. Then he turned back to his worktable and the experiment like nothing had happened.

 

Fine by Demo, he didn’t mind having a bit of privacy to wipe his cock clean and get it tucked away again.

 

Felt a bit weird, getting back to normal. That had been so abrupt and hurried, if it hadn’t been for the bright white of the Medic’s shirt and the flash of his red necktie tucked into his trouser pocket, he could have convinced himself it had all been a booze dream. It would almost make more sense if it was; the last thing he would have expected having been called to the lab was a good, hard quickie. Being partially dismantled and filled with doves was honestly more likely.

 

He and Medic both turned at the sound of a tentative knock at the lab door. Medic glanced briefly at Demo, then crossed the lab in a few brisk steps and opened the door. Heavy stood there, looking stern.

 

“All is… okay?” he asked, peering into the lab.

 

“Aye,” Demo replied. He glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that it had been a fair bit more than half an hour. Either Heavy was late, or he’d been out in the corridor for a few minutes. He glanced over at him, to see him staring, frowning, at the Medic’s necktie. A loop of it dangled out of his pocket and it drew the eye. Heavy’s expression was… hard to read.

 

“Let’s go,” Demo said to him. “Leave the doc to his important work.”

 

“Ja, ja, I’ll tell you if I make any progress,” Medic said airily.

 

Heavy gave Demo a weird look as they left the lab, but Demo was frankly too fucking worn out to think about it.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy has a sneaking suspicion that something is going on.  
> Hmm.  
> Hmmmmmmmmmm.
> 
> Hope you're enjoying it, please give feedback if you have time :)


	3. Medical Apparatus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After he’d come, the doc had pulled the toy out and cast his professional eye over it. 
> 
> “It’s a very fine piece of machinery,” he’d said. “Very fine indeed. But…”
> 
> Well, Dell Conagher has never been the sort of man who can leave ‘but’ be.

The device that Engie tended to refer to as the ‘massager’ was currently in its fifth version, and it just kept getting better. And as much as he was satisfied and proud with the work he’d put into getting it there, with the effort to get the vibration pattern just right, with finding the ideal material for the outer skin, with adjusting the angle of the curve to the perfect degree, he had to admit that he would never had gotten so far had it not been for Medic’s help.

 

The first time Medic strode up to him in the kitchen and propositioned him for sex - and Engie had never seen any reason to turn him down, it being a lonely life and the doc being a damn good looking man when he wasn’t splattered in blood - Engie had shown him his little experimental device and the doc had demanded a turn on it. Engie had been only too happy to oblige, especially seeing as the Medic had a little more energy than him, and he was honestly glad to give himself a rest between rounds while the doc wore himself out a little. He’d looked gorgeous with the toy snugged inside him, sweating and moaning while Engie used just the tips of his fingers to move it around, this way and that, in and out, just enough to get the doc yelling and babbling. 

 

After he’d come, the doc had pulled the toy out and cast his professional eye over it. 

 

“It’s a very fine piece of machinery,” he’d said. “Very fine indeed. But…”

 

Well, Dell Conagher has never been the sort of man who can leave ‘but’ be.

 

“But what?” he asked.

 

“But I do feel it could be a little larger,” Medic finished, and then softened the blow by reaching out to run his fingers down the length of Engie’s sticky, tired out, still slightly chubby dick, and added; “A little more like you.”

 

Version 2 was a tad longer and a good bit thicker, and Engie, who could flirt up a storm in the company of ladies but had very limited and largely disastrous experiences of approaching men for casual sex, had been glad of the easy excuse to invite the Medic back to his room again to try it out.

 

Well, they had a hell of a good time; the doc had him hold the toy upright on the bed for him so he could ride it (and didn’t he look a sight to behold). Then he took a ride on Engie too, and looked even better. When they were done, doc gave the new version another of those careful once-overs, and said;

 

“I feel it’s a little too smooth.”

 

Well, Dell Conagher has never been the sort of man to back down from a challenge.

 

Version 3 had little raised bumps all over its surface. Medic fucked himself with it while sucking Engie off. Then he said “I feel it could curve a touch more”.

 

Okay, sure.

Version 4 had curved beautifully, an angle calculated with the help of several of the Medic’s anatomy charts, and more than one of his eye-opening European magazines. They’d got a box of condoms so they didn’t have to clean it up, and took turns with it. After, still panting and covered in pearl jam, Medic had said “I feel it would be nice if it could...hmm…”

 

“What?” Engie had said.

 

“If it could sort of... sqvirm around. You understand vhat I mean?” the doc had said, and damn if that hadn’t been his best idea yet. 

 

It took him a while to redesign the little motor that made it vibrate so that it sat inside the tube-shaped chamber that housed the semi-interlocking heptadecagons, which reacted magnetically to an electrical charge and rotated against each other in a real nice little pattern. When switched on, the whole top half of the massager wiggled around and around, curling and uncurling just a touch to boot.

 

Engie had spent some time going over his contract with RED after he was done with it, to make sure that it was only the machines he created on their orders that the company held the rights to. Because as soon as his term was up, he was gonna patent that little sucker and buy himself a god damn island. 

 

The first time he used it, he came so quick and so hard he damn near blacked out. After he’d got his breath back, he’d had himself a drink of water, cleaned himself up, got dressed, and went to find Medic.

 

And now, about two hours since the massager mark 5 had crossed the threshold, as it were, Engie and Medic lay side by side on their backs, on top of the covers of Engie’s not-really-wide-enough-for-two-grown-men bed, panting contentedly at the ceiling.

 

“Das ist sehr gut,” Medic murmured softly into the quiet, still air.

 

Engie grunted and assumed he’d said something positive.

 

It was nice, this thing he and the doc had going. No romance, no commitment, just easy fun when one or both of them needed it. They didn’t kiss or hug, none of that stuff, but that distance during their afternoons off (as Engie liked to think of them) allowed them to maintain their intellectual intimacy in the lab, their knack for meshing their knowledge together as they worked. The Medic was great in bed, and the admiring attention he paid to Engie’s body had him feeling better about his looks than he had since he was seventeen. All in all, it was better than anything he’d dared to hope to find when he’d taken his contract.

 

It helped that he felt he could trust the doc. Or at least, he could trust him to be consistent, because nobody in their right mind would let him touch their body so extensively in any other context. But working together gave him a clear picture of the man, let him know to know when to press and when to back off. When to join in and when to step on the brakes.

 

It helped that they both knew full well that one another’s hearts were occupied elsewhere.

 

Engie was lost in thought, half dozing, when he felt a light touch against his scalp, which resolved itself into Medic gently stroking the short nap of his hair with his fingertips. Couldn’t blame the man, it felt real nice. Of course, the doc doing that usually meant he was feeling a little pensive.

 

“You feelin’ okay?” Engie asked tentatively.

 

“Mmm,” Medic replied with a sigh. “I foolishly let my thoughts stray. I ought not to think of sad things on such an enjoyable day.”

 

“Lost love?” Enie asked, knowing full well what it was about.

 

Medic snorted. “That would imply I had had it in the first place.” Engie couldn’t fault his logic. Damn, now he was starting to feel a little gloomy as well. Post orgasmic drop plus that little nagging empty spot inside…

 

He let out a sigh, and Medic was immediately holding his hand, petting at it and tutting in sympathy like a grandma.

 

“It is not easy, is it mein freund,” he said quietly. 

 

Engie shook his head.

 

“But yours is making progress,” the doc continued. “I am sure of it. We will get them there, I assure you.”

 

Engie did actually feel reassured at that, to his own surprise. The Medic didn’t make promises - or assurances - he didn’t intend to keep.

 

“And as for yours,” he replied, but was cut off.

 

“Mine is… as out of reach as ever,” Medic sighed. “So let us think of happier things.”

 

Engie looked over to check and, yes, Medic’s salaciously raised eyebrow clearly communicated what type of ‘things’ he considered to constitute happier.

 

A sudden change of mood, but Engie was a flexible man.

 

“What you got in mind, doc?”

 

Medic grinned at him, then rolled away to grope on the floor after a piece of his clothing. Rustling and a faint clinking sound as he pulled something free of a pocket, then he abruptly bounced back to Engie’s side and dropped something cold onto his stomach.

 

Engie picked it up and took a look at it. It looked like a necklace. A thin metal chain, strung with smooth spherical beads made from some sort of dark grey mineral. Sorta pretty, but not really what he’d expected. He glanced over the the Medic, who had reached the lube off the night stand and was rubbing the bottle between his palms to try and warm it.

 

“What exactly d’you have in mind for this, doc?”

 

“You vill see, my friend. Move into the centre of the bed, bitte, but stay on your back.”

 

In any other context, those words from the doc would have had him running a mile, but he seemed to have something approaching a sense of boundaries in bed, so Engie steeled himself and did as he was asked. Medic sat up and swung a leg over him, settling his weight on Engie’s thighs. He squeezed a generous blob of surgical lubricant into his hand and rubbed it between his palms briefly, then wrapped a fist around each of their cocks and gave them both a quick, smooth tug. Then he moved just so, lined them both up nicely, and draped the chain around both of their shafts. Lifted the slack and dropped another loop of chain around them both. Again. And again. Until the whole chain was strung around them, holding them close together with just enough slack to be comfortable.

 

“You see vhat I have in mind, ja?”

 

“Ja. Uh, yeah,” Engie gulped.

 

And then he couldn’t really manage words for a little while, because the doc wrapped one long, handsome hand around them both and slid the loops of chain up and down in his grip. All those little beads, rolling smoothly against their skin, slipping in the slick, warming with the heat of them. It felt like hundreds of firm little fingertips fondling at his shaft, and Engie was breathless again before he knew it, the doc making throaty grunting sounds on top of him, and Engie grabbed onto his thighs and sunk his fingers in, digging his heels into the bed to try and make himself keep still.

 

He came ridiculously fast, and was only saved from considerable embarrassment by the fact that the Medic gave a wail the second he felt Engie’s dick throbbing, and came right after him.

 

And, once again, they lay on their backs on the too-narrow bed, panting at the ceiling.

 

“As exciting and technically impressive as your toys are,” Medic said after a while, “this little einrichtung vill always hold a special place in my heart.”

 

“Sure,” Engie wheezed. “Don’t blame you.” And damn, if he could invent something a fella could slip his dick into, something that felt like those beads… or hey, something synthetic that felt like another person. “Hey doc, you know of any kind of… synthetic skin?”

 

The Medic gave him a sort of curious side eye, then started slightly and reached to the night stand to turn the clock towards him. “I will look into it, mein freund, but that is a conversation that must wait for another day,” he said. “I have places I must be.”

 

Engie nodded and rose from the bed to start getting dressed. Honestly, even with casual partners he liked to hang out a little and relax after, but he didn’t mind it like this. One of the nice things about this arrangement he had going on with the doc; they could ask when they wanted, accept when they wanted, leave when they wanted.

 

The doc always dressed fast, even when he was sweaty or sticky. He was fully dressed, aside from his tie which he had stuck into his pants pocket as he always did after sex, and was standing at Engie’s shaving mirror straightening his hair, by the time Engie was in his t-shirt and boxers, standing on one leg to struggle into his overalls. He felt Medic’s gaze on him for a moment, but didn’t look up. He’d realised ages ago, before this whole thing even started, that Medic liked the sight of his upper arms in the tight t-shirt sleeves.

 

Finally, the doc crossed the room and lightly touched Engie on the shoulder. “It has been a very pleasant afternoon,” he said smoothly. “I feel like my head has cleared.”

 

“Me too. You always know what does a body good.”

 

“Now that your ‘massager’ seems to have been perfected, I shall have to come up with some more ideas to keep your clever mind busy.”

 

“Long as they don’t involve incisions, doc, I’m your man.”

 

They shared a laugh (though honestly, Engie was deadly serious) and Engie crossed to the door of his room and held it open, gentlemanly like, to let Medic pass through.

 

It startled him a little to hear footsteps in the corridor outside, and he had a moment’s pang of fear that it would be Miss Pauling. But no, no way those were her footsteps. A moment later, Heavy came into view, and stopped right outside his door.

 

“Ah. Here,” Heavy said simply, and handed Engie the envelope he was carrying, a thick padded one with the MannCo logo stamped on it. New orders, oh boy.

 

He would have opened the envelope up then and there, but he became aware of a certain… distinct quiet, and looked up. The doc was staring dead at Heavy’s face, his expression tight and annoyed.

 

Heavy was staring at the bright red tie that hung out of the doc’s pocket, looking like a detective in a hard boiled drama who just discovered a splash of blood.

 

“Good afternoon, herr Engineer,” Medic said briskly, and he pushed his way past Heavy and strode off down the corridor, long legs carrying him away before Engie could get out a proper goodbye.

 

Engie looked to Heavy for an explanation, but he just looked away, mumbled something that sounded like a salutation, then walked off in the opposite direction to Medic.

 

Hoo boy.

 

Engie ducked back into his rooms and opened the envelope, hoping to hell there were some new materials on their way. 

 

Because if those two were feuding? The team was going to need all the help it could get.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Engie invented both the Rabbit and the fleshlight, is what I'm implying.
> 
> I hope you're enjoying this. And yes, there will some a resolution to what the heck is going on between Medic and Heavy in the end :D
> 
> As always, feedback is appreciated.


	4. Practical Demonstration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I told you. Vith a little trust, and some lubricant, it’s a very good thing. Yes?”
> 
> “Yuh,” Soldier grunted.
> 
> Medic was playing with Soldier’s ass. Soldier was enjoying it. Heavy was so envious he could have chewed through his own jaw.

It was a rare day that the mercs got to eat lunch at a table like civilised people, rather than crouching at their lockers in the resupply rooms cramming as much of their food into their mouths as they could before the sirens started up. Today, however, had been quiet, and though they were technically on call, by noon it was clear that nothing serious was going to happen. As such, Heavy and Engie had taken it upon themselves to prepare a platter of sandwiches, and made it known to the others that lunch was ready when they were. They had been sitting in the kitchen together for some time, and Heavy had been on the cusp of coming up with the perfect approach - not threatening or gossipy, just gently inquiring - with which to press the Engineer in regard to what exactly he had been doing in his room with the Medic, when Soldier had come in and noisily praised their having taken on KP without being ordered.

 

Heavy consoled himself over the lost opportunity by taking another sandwich.

 

The two Americans immediately fell into companionable chit-chat, a pastime which Heavy had never mastered in Russian, never mind English, when Scout wandered in to stuff his face, soon followed by the Sniper, who helped himself to some food, gave a grunt of appreciation to the room at large, and wandered off again.

 

Scout was listening intently to Soldier and Engie’s conversation, no doubt waiting for an appropriate moment to stick his foot into something sensitive, when the door to the refectory swung open once more, and Medic stepped in, fresh from a walk, it appeared.

Out of uniform, he tended to dress like a person from another age. Today he wore his usual shirt, tie and waistcoat, along with a tweed jacket and plus-fours, worn with long, ribbed socks and hiking boots. The plus-fours hugged his narrow hips just so, and the legs fastened up just above the thickest part of his calf muscles. It made Heavy want to push him onto the floor and bite his thighs.

 

“Hallo,” the Medic called cheerily to the room at large as he walked in. Soldier gave his outfit a once over and smirked, but resisted the obvious urge to mock. Engie waved the Medic towards the platter of food, and in short order the Doctor was seated at the table next to Heavy, eating his lunch with small, polite bites.

 

“What you been up to, doc?” Engie asked pleasantly once he settled. 

 

“I vas out looking for cacti,” the Medic replied with a slightly sad air. “I read a very good article about a local species whose pulp has a coagulating property vhich is being examined for medical use, but I could not find the right type. I did see a robed vagtail though, so it vasn’t a vasted trip.”

 

“A robed...what?” Heavy asked.

 

“Vagtail. It’s a type of little bird. Their tails vag vhen they valk.”

 

“Huh,” Heavy responded. It sounded rather cute.

 

“But you vere talking about something else vhen I came in,” Medic continued, glancing over at the Engineer. “I hope I didn’t upset your conversation?”

 

“Nah, it’s fine,” Engie replied. “I was jus’ tellin’ the boys here about an old college friend o’ mine. He’s been carryin’ on with his kid’s English teacher for months, not even tryin’ to hide it, and now the damn idiot’s surprised that his wife kicked him out! Can you credit it?”

 

Medic made a grunt of disapproval, while Soldier snorted and shook his head.

 

“If a man isn’t cut out for marriage, he ought  _ never enlist _ for it!” he said stridently.

 

“Agreed,” the Doctor murmured. “If a person agrees to monogamy, they must stick to it or end it cleanly. I have little respect for people who cheat on their spouses.” He glanced uncomfortably at Engie and Soldier, then at Scout. Then, with an air of determination, he returned his attention to his food.

 

“Don’t you have a wife?” Soldier asked the Medic bluntly, and the question was so abrupt that Heavy almost gave a start. What a stupid idea! There was no way in hell Medic would ever marry. Why would Soldier even ask?

 

“I am divorced, actually,” the Medic said, and Heavy nearly choked on his sandwich. The only consolation to his shock was that Scout looked equally stunned.

 

Soldier tutted. “Couldn’t see it through, sad times,” he muttered.

 

“It vas entirely amicable,” Medic told him, rather sternly. “Ours vas a marriage of convenience alone. My vife was the only child of a wealthy businessman who owned a pharmaceutical company. Though she was more than capable of understanding the business, he left a clause in his vill that said she could only inherit if she was married to a man with medical qualifications. So, she needed a husband who would quietly disappear once she had established herself, while I needed a Green Card and some funds.”

 

He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed meditatively for a moment, before adding; “You know, I think our marriage was more successful than those of most people I know. We rather liked one another.”

 

Engie, looking a little wistful, asked “You ever miss it? Bein’ married, I mean.”

 

“Oh no, “ Medic replied, shaking his head. “I liked her company, and of course the whole arrangement had its benefits for me. But I could not pursue my experiments vhile ve vere together. For appearances sake, you know? And of course, I could not pursue any other relationships either. She and I had no chemistry, of course.”

 

“Why not?” Soldier demanded. “She ugly?”

 

“No, not at all. But I am homosexual.” 

 

Heavy tensed, ready to jump to Medic’s defence if Soldier reacted badly. However, the American simply fixed Medic with a puzzled frown, head tilted to one side like a confused dog.

 

“That kinda like bein’ a virgo, or somethin’ like that?” he asked.

 

Medic chuckled. “You are thinking of zodiac signs, mein freund. No, it’s nothing like that.”

 

“Good! Because I  _ do not care _ for that hippy bullshit.”

 

“I am sure,” the doctor said serenely, and took another bite of his food. After a few minutes of chewing, he spoke again, saying in a quiet, dignified tone; “It is a matter of preference for the gender of romantic partners. Most men are attracted only to vomen, some only to men, and some to both. I am attracted only to men, the term for vhich is homosexual. You see?”

 

To the surprise of everyone present, Soldier actually appeared to think.

 

Over from his perch on the countertop, Heavy heard Scout murmur “Both?” in an astonished tone, and wondered if the boy had just experienced some sort of revelation.

 

“Doc,” Soldier said after a moment of intense cogitation, “I’m pretty sure I recall somebody telling me that that stuff is evil.”

 

“No, no way buddy,” Engie rushed to assure him. “Not evil. Just a little unconventional is all. You know that upsets some folks.”

 

Soldier gave a grunt, glancing suspiciously between Engie and the Medic.

 

“These ‘homosexuals’,” he said, sounding wary, “They’re the fella’s who put stuff up each other’s butts, right?”

 

Scout started coughing loudly. Medic gave a little chuckle. “Sometimes, perhaps. Vhy do you ask?”

 

Soldier grimaced. “That  _ ain’t  _ right,” he barked.

 

“And vhy not?”

 

“Well… stuff’s supposed to come  _ out  _ of butts, not go  _ in _ .”

 

Engie pursed his lips together so tightly that they went pale, and Heavy honestly couldn’t tell if he was trying to hold in laughter or resist the urge to get in on the argument that was brewing.

 

“Vell… look at it this vay, herr Soldier,” Medic said calmly. “What is the most patriotic thing an American can do?”

 

“Enlist!” Soldier cried happily.

 

“And it is mostly men that enlist, ja?”

 

“You’re damn right!”

 

“So the most patriotic people must be men, yes?”

 

“Yeah!” Soldier said, and slapped himself in the chest to demonstrate that he was such a person.

 

“And enlisted men must know their bodies very vell in order to fight, yes?”

 

“Hell yes!”

 

“Vell then, surely two men joining vith one another to, ah, admit one another into their bodies could be viewed as an expression of patriotism, no?”

 

“... My  _ God _ …” Soldier breathed.

 

Engie was definitely struggling to hold in laughter. 

 

It was actually rather impressive. Medic had figured out where the holes in Soldier’s reasoning lay well enough to trip him up in them. Heavy looked at the man out of the corner of his eye. He looked only mildly smug, able to contain his natural exuberance better in such a calm situation than when he was in the field or the lab. He was so desirable it made Heavy feel almost mournful. The man was perfectly within his rights to turn him down, of course, but he would have liked to at least know the reason. The reason why he wouldn’t consider him when they got along so well together in everything else. Why he wouldn’t consider him when he seemed willing to sleep with so many of their colleagues. It was galling almost, and Heavy had to try hard not to feel angry.

 

Medic’s eyes flicked up then, and Heavy didn’t look away fast enough to avoid being caught staring. There was something… not angry, not sad, but perhaps a little of each, in the Medic’s expression. Heavy turned his attention to his lunch, the least confusing thing around currently. Engie and Soldier’s conversation had turned to guns once more, both of them engrossed. At some point, Scout had left the room.

 

Shortly afterwards, Medic rose to his feet, murmured a word of thanks for the lunch, and carried his plate over to the sink before leaving the room. Heavy’s feet twitched with the desire to follow him, but he resisted. Instead he elbowed his way in to the low key argument that Engie and Soldier were having over shotgun shell casings.

 

Some time later, engrossed in watching as Engie sketched out his new ideas for tracer rounds on the inside of an old cornflake box, Heavy noticed that Soldier had left the room.

 

“Where did he go?” he asked Engie, who looked around surprised, having not seen him leave either.

 

“Dunno. Not like him to slip away so quiet.”

 

“No,” Heavy replied. It made him worry. “You think he realise Doctor tricked him?”

 

Engie pursed his lips. “I think it’d be maybe a little too subtle for him, if I’m honest.”

 

“Hm.”

 

“Though…” Engie seemed to pick up on Heavy’s feeling of unease. “Wouldn’t hurt to figure out where he went, I guess. Lord knows he can get real tetchy if he thinks somebody’s got one over on ‘im.”

 

Heavy nodded and rose to his feet. “I go to find Doctor,” he declared, telling himself firmly that he wasn’t getting territorial. “You find Soldier.”

 

Engie nodded, tore out the sketch he’d made from the rest of the box and stuffed it into the pocket of his overalls before getting up. They left the kitchen and set off in different directions, Engie towards the firing range where Soldier usually lurked during his time away from the battlefield, and Heavy towards the infirmary. 

 

He walked into the waiting area with trepidation, but the sign was not lit, indicating that the Doctor was not in. Just to be sure, he pushed open the door, and managed to look around and confirm that the room was empty before the doves began swooping towards him. He closed the door on them and thought carefully.

 

The Medic wouldn’t be in the weapons lab without Engie, he was sure. Not after the nitroglycerin incident. He’d been dealing with his inventory yesterday and had said he was finished with it for the month, so he probably wasn’t in any of the storage rooms. Maybe the gym? He did sometimes box on their quiet afternoons.

 

Heavy set off for the gym, the silent corridor echoing softly with his footsteps. Somewhere in the distance he could hear Demo’s raised voice, followed by a loud hissing noise, presumably a failed explosion. Beyond that, there was little sign of life in the base.

 

He reached the gym doors and listened carefully. There was no sound of movement inside, no telltale  _ thump  _ of fists against the punching bag. However, a little light showed underneath the doors, so somebody was probably inside. Very carefully, Heavy placed his hand flat against one of the swing doors and pushed it open just a crack.

 

“-nothing at all to it, you see?” came Medic’s voice from inside. He spoke softly, cajolingly, like he did when he was trying to convince Heavy to let him take photographs of his organs. 

 

There was quiet for a moment, broken by a little, damp sound. Medic spoke again.

 

“Vouldn’t you say it feels nice?”

 

There was a grunt, and Heavy’s spine went stiff. That was Soldier, he was sure of it. 

 

“Ja, it does,” Medic soothed. “I told you. Vith a little trust, and some lubricant, it’s a very good thing. Yes?”

 

“Yuh,” Soldier grunted.

 

Medic was playing with Soldier’s ass. Soldier was enjoying it. Heavy was so envious he could have chewed through his own jaw.

 

He should have left, he really should. It was wrong and sick and disrespectful to stand there listening to them in this vulnerable, private moment. And yet he stood there, hand keeping the door open that tiny crack, ears figuratively pricked.

 

“You are very hard. Do you vant to touch yourself? I shall keep doing this if you do, it’s all right.”

 

A pause, then sounds of motion and a groan from Soldier. 

 

“There ve are. A little harder, yes?”

 

Gasping then, from Soldier and possibly the Doctor as well. “That’s very nice. You see how enjoyable it is? How much better it feels than touching only your genitals?”

 

There was a moment of noisy sputtering from Soldier as he tried to get out an answer, then a drawn out, hoarse cry.

 

“That’s the vay,” Medic said, sounding pleased. “That vas very nice, vasn’t it now. Ah, it’s all right mein freund, come here.” 

 

Rustling of fabric then. Was he rearranging Soldier’s clothes for him? Covering him up? Cuddling him?

 

“Now, vould you like me to show you how to do the same to me?” Medic’s voice said, and Heavy let the door fall closed before he could hear any more.

 

He stayed where he was for a minute or so, long enough to make sure there was no reaction from inside the gym, that neither of them had noticed the door closing. He heard no more, and couldn’t quite stop himself from feeling disappointed. Then he set off back through the corridors, calling himself every miserable thing under the sun in his thoughts.

 

Making his way back past the infirmary, he bumped into the Engineer, who looked a little flustered. 

 

“I couldn’t find Soldier anywhere,” he said worriedly. “You see any sign?”

 

“Da,” Heavy said.

 

“...Well...were they okay?”

 

Heavy tried to shake off his poor mood. “They are fine. They are in the gymnasium. Doctor is teaching Soldier about...boxing.”

  
“Huh,” Engie said, eyeing Heavy with curiosity. Heavy pushed past him and went to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There has been... kind of a gap, in this story. I'm sorry if it has frustrated those of you who've been following it, but I got a chance to submit a story to a charity anthology that I really wanted to support and so I put my other writing on hold for a while. And I'm glad to say that my story was accepted for the anthology, so I'm very pleased about that. Hopefully I'll now be able to update every couple of weeks or so until this story is finished, and then I have another one about halfway done that I want to finish off and post.   
> I hope you're enjoying it :)


	5. Healthy Catharsis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Vhy did she leave?” Medic asked quietly.
> 
> “She didn't like that I kept stabbing her son to death.”
> 
> “Ah. Yes, that vould-”
> 
> “And shooting him.”
> 
> “Alright.”
> 
> “And sometimes pushing him off buildings, or...well, you know. The usual. I tell her it's all part of my job, but...women.”
> 
> Medic nodded. “Mothers especially.”
> 
> “Sentimental.”
> 
> “Ja, ja.”

Sometimes, a man just wants to get drunk.

 

It was normal, a reasonable if not exactly healthy response to certain stimulus. Certain emotional states. Spy was not ashamed of the fact that, once in a while, he wanted the release, wanted to become just a little bit of a mess.

 

Though of course, he was not such a miserable case that he wanted to drink alone.

 

When he first had the notion of inviting one of his esteemed colleagues to drink with him, it had seemed like it would be hard to choose between them, but with further consideration, it seemed there was only one viable option. Scout was too irritating, the Engineer too easily flustered, Soldier too loud, and Sniper too quiet. Heavy and Demoman both tended to view alcohol consumption as a competitive matter, while Pyro was just… unthinkable.

 

The Medic, on the other hand, was eloquent and intelligent, held his alcohol well enough to be good company but not so well as to be boring, and as long as one kept him away from the topic of his work, he was generally decent company. And, fortunately, when Spy invited him to spend an evening drinking with him, he happily accepted without asking why.

 

They had settled themselves down on the sofa in the small, ratty apartment that the company had the nerve to call a rec room a little before ten, and had locked themselves in, with two bottles of good brandy (Spy’s contribution), three bottles of a very strong and heady red wine (Medic’s), and a healthy spirit of determination.

 

It was now a little after midnight, there was one bottle of each liquor left, they were both lying on the floor, and the Monopoly board was set up between them, though Spy could not quite recall when they had started playing, or why. And neither of them was entirely sure of the rules.

 

“I vant to know who is giving us the money vhen ve pass ‘go’,” Medic said plaintively, and Spy giggled. Medic squinted at him over the tops of his glasses. “Is it the mayor or something? It cannot be two hundred dollars from novhere.”

 

Spy tried to come up with an answer, but couldn’t find one. He was well past buzzed, but not quite yet so drunk that he wouldn’t remember this in the morning. A lot of his words seemed to have abandoned him though, and the giggle just would not stop coming, no matter how long he stared at the board and tried to make it make sense.

 

Medic was grinning at him. “You’re in good spirits,” he said pleasantly. “You have seemed down the last few days. Has something been the matter?”

 

Spy pursed his lips and toyed with his empty snifter. He hadn’t actually intended to talk to Medic about what had been troubling him, but right now, there didn’t seem to be any reason not to. Or rather, he was aware that there were many good reasons not to, but they were all hidden behind the gauzy curtain of alcohol. Before he could say anything though, Medic, began to speak.

 

“I have not been feeling quite myself lately, I admit,” he said. 

 

“Really? I regret to say I hadn’t noticed any difference in your behaviour.” Which was rather galling.

 

Medic sighed. “I hope that it has not affected my performance,” he said. “Though that is half the problem, really. I have always enjoyed my vork so very much.”

 

“Of course,” Spy said, thinking about all the cackling that frequently echoed across the battlefield and through the corridors of the base. Let no-one suggest that the Medic didn’t  _ thoroughly _ enjoy his work.

 

“Though lately, I do begin to feel I vould like more in life, you know?”

 

Spy nodded. “Yes. Man cannot live by massacre alone.”

 

“Qvite so. But… vell, the  _ more  _ that I vould like is… out of my reach.”

 

“I am sorry, mon ami,” Spy said, and the Medic gave a solemn nod.

 

“Vhat is it that troubles you, mein freund?”

 

“Ah, it is…” Spy felt his usual self imposed brakes press down on his tongue, but for some reason they didn’t quite work this evening. 

 

“It is that I spend so much of my time… I don’t know how to phrase it…”

 

“Spend so much time… vhat?”

 

He looked over at the Medic to see him staring back calm and attentive, like a real doctor would look as they listened to a patient. The only outward sign of his drunkenness was the slight pink flush on his cheeks, and that he had one shirt sleeve rolled up and the other down. Spy knew he shouldn’t share his thoughts with any of his team, any more than he needed to. But…

 

“I sometimes feel that I am losing myself to this place,” he admitted. “I spend so much time disguised as others, or moving around invisibly, that I come back from battle and feel like I must put my own identity back in place. As if it were another mask.”

 

Medic made a gratifyingly sad sounding ‘ _ ach _ ’ of sympathy.

 

“And… the things I have beyond the company and the work… they are growing fewer and fewer.”

 

“Ja, I can understand that.”

 

He sounded so very dolorous that it made a great wave of sadness roll up through Spy’s chest, and for the first time in years he felt the pressure of tears gathering in his throat. He could hardly bear it.

 

“She left me,” he blurted. 

 

“She? Oh, you had a lover?”

 

“Oui.” Spy gave a great sigh, willing the threat of tears to pass. “Ma petite chou-fleur.”

 

“Ah, I'm sorry. Vhy did your...your...uh, vhat is she called?”

 

“Means 'little cauliflower'. She was so  _ pretty _ .” He groaned and rubbed his forehead through his mask.

 

“Vhy did she leave?” Medic asked quietly.

 

“She didn't like that I kept stabbing her son to death.”

 

“Ah. Yes, that vould-”

 

“And shooting him.”

 

“Alright.”

 

“And sometimes pushing him off buildings, or...well, you know. The usual. I tell her it's all part of my job, but... _ women _ .”

 

Medic nodded. “Mothers especially.”

 

“Sentimental.”

 

“Ja, ja.”

 

He lay back on the floor, empty glass tumbling from his fingers, and rubbed his eyes. Maybe this had been a mistake. He’d hoped to be cheered, or at least for some helpful catharsis. Instead he could feel despair creeping in. He should never had told Medic about her, should never had drunk so much, should never had tried to maintain a relationship at such a distance. Maybe he should never have come to the Gravel Wars in the first place. Maybe he should have just-

 

“This is a flat iron,” Medic said suddenly.

 

Spy sat up and stared at him. “What?”

 

“This,” Medic said, holding up the little metal Monopoly piece he’d been playing with. “It’s a flat iron.”

 

Spy blinked. “Of course it is. What did you think it was?”

 

Medic turned the piece in his fingers, adjusting his glasses so he could glare at it. “I thought it vas a little boat, vith a mast, or something.”

 

“Why...why would you think that?” Spy asked, and it was only as he heard his words come out in a strange rhythm that he realised he was beginning to laugh.

 

“Vell, yours is a car. Isn’t it?”

 

Struggling not to laugh out loud now, Spy pursed his lips and nodded vigorously.

 

“The rest don’t fit a pattern though, I suppose,” Medic mused, peering blearily into the box of board game bits. “There is a shoe, and a little dog.”

 

Laughter blurted out of Spy, though he really had no idea why he found the whole thing so funny. Medic stared at him with mild curiosity for a few seconds, then dropped the game pieces he was holding and began to laugh along with him. Before long, they were both lying flat on the floor, clutching at one another’s arms, laughing so hard they were panting for breath in between bouts.

 

It felt so good, like some great weight that had been dragging Spy down had been, not lifted off him, but pulled out of him, a piece of festering flesh removed. Gradually, over long, elated minutes, the laughter worked its way out of them, and left them breathless and giddy, slumped together and still grasping each other’s forearms. Medic was smiling broadly, and Spy was sure that he was doing the same. He gazed happily at Medic’s relaxed face and…

 

And he tried to make himself look away. There was a little warmth flickering in his stomach which he really didn’t need. Medic's face was damnably attractive at the best of times, but now, cheeks flushed from the alcohol and a lazy smile reshaping his wide mouth, Spy found it hard to tear his eyes away from him. In another world he could have been a Hollywood idol, making whole cinemas full of women swoon with a smouldering look. As it was, he was lying on the threadbare carpet in the rec room of a ramshackle quasi-military base in the asshole of nowhere, his only audience a woeful Spy who was just starting to accept the fact that he couldn't really consider himself a young man any longer and-

 

Damn it all, Medic had reached up and slipped his glasses off, and that just made everything worse. Spy almost wanted to tell him to put them back on, but if he did so he would lose the delicious view, so he stayed quiet while Medic folded the glasses and reached out an arm to place them carefully on the seat of the nearby couch.

 

“Ve are silly creatures, mein freund,” he said lightly.

 

Spy paused a little too long before saying “Oui.”

 

Medic fixed him with a look, curious at first, and then sliding into something like intrigue. Medic’s hand slid up Spy’s arm to cup his shoulder and draw him closer, and Spy spared a moment to consider how  _ nice  _ it was not to be the one who initiated things for once, right before he leaned in to let the good doctor kiss him.

 

It had been some time since he had been kissed by a man, and even longer since he had gone further with one and, though it would be inaccurate to say that he had missed it, kissing the Medic was satisfying in a way he had forgotten he could feel. The other man was a touch bigger than him all around, taller and broader set and bearing a little more muscle on his frame. It felt good to be in his arms, to hold him, to press his own torso against that firm, warm body. He was a good kisser, but didn’t put up a fight when Spy seized hold of the reins and showed off a little, smiling against his lips and grunting softly every time Spy’s tongue curled underneath his own, of flickered against what must have been a nicely sensitive spot on the roof of his mouth.

 

Spy had slipped into a happy, kissing haze by the time he felt the Medic’s hands starting to move, and  _ oh _ ! Time to make a decision came when he felt one of the doctor’s hands cup his groin. How far did he want this to go? He was aroused, certainly. Some sex would not go amiss. Still kissing slowly, he considered the Medic as a partner, considered how much happier the Engineer was since the two of them had started their casual arrangement together, considered how likely said Engineer was to put up with any surgical shenanigans in bed and what that said of the doctor’s ability to separate work from play.

 

Yes, this would do nicely, Spy decided, and he kicked his leg over the doctor’s waist and rolled his hips.

 

Seconds later, he was flat on his back, the not inconsiderable weight of the Medic on top of him, between his legs.

 

“You move rather quickly, don’t you,” Spy commented, as Medic broke their kiss to mouth at his throat under the edge of his mask.

 

“I have known you for half a year,” Medic replied, wryly, against the tendons of his neck. “I feel I’ve been quite restrained.”

 

Spy smiled, dizzily at the pleasant sensation. “You don’t like to savour your experiences?”

 

“Savour as much as you like,” Medic said, kneeling up over Spy. “I prefer to get on vith things.”

 

And with that, he bent down over Spy’s groin and-  _ oh _ !

 

Spy really  _ was _ drunk, if he’d somehow managed to miss the Medic getting his trousers unfastened. It was a delightful surprise though, the doctor’s fingers nimbly tugging him through the slit of his underwear just in time to,  _ oh _ , to be engulfed. And who would expect that the cerebral, buttoned up doctor would be quite so effective at deep throating? People were so wonderfully full of surprises.

 

Spy savoured it indeed. In fact, between the emotional rollercoaster of the evening, and the considerable amount of brandy and wine still in his system, he had neither the strength nor the wherewithal to do anything more than lie back and take it. If the doctor minded, he didn’t show it at all, contentedly slurping away at Spy’s cock, doing the most delightful things with his tongue.

 

How in the hell did he get this good?

 

Spy was in  _ heaven _ ! He couldn’t stop moaning, the sounds pouring from his mouth even when he tried to clench his jaw closed. The Medic wormed his fingers into the flies of Spy’s trousers and cupped his balls, stroked his fingertips firmly behind them, and Spy squirmed like an overstimulated youth, panting for breath. 

 

Oh this was embarrassing. It had taken so little time!

 

“S-stop,” he sputtered. “You’re going to make me come!”

 

He felt as well as heard the throaty chuckle the Medic gave at that, and it didn’t help him at all. With a sharp cry, he was coming, hard, and the doctor kept sucking him luxuriantly all through it, until he was as limp as a rag.

 

He lay on the floor, panting heavily, equal parts deliciously satisfied and horribly embarrassed, when the Medic broke him out of his post-coital daze by reclining down beside him, propped up on one elbow, grinning down at Spy like a shark.

 

“So, does your sterling reputation apply equally to men as it does to vomen?” he asked cheekily.

 

No, unfortunately, it didn’t.

 

“Perhaps,” Spy said. “Though sadly you aren’t equipped to make an even-handed judgement.”

 

Medic chuckled heartily and pulled Spy’s hand to his groin. Spy sat up and kissed him, tasting traces of his own semen, then rolled him onto his back and unfastened the fly of his damnably awkward jodhpurs. 

 

It was many long years since he’d sucked off another man, but Spy was ever confident in his abilities, and dove in with gusto. Medic, to his credit, was terribly encouraging, making all manner of appreciative noises while Spy went to work, occasionally gasping out half-formed words in German which Spy, lost in concentration, could barely make out.

 

He had actually missed this, he realised. The vulnerability of being on his belly on the floor, bent over another man’s lap. The soft-hard textures of skin and flesh in his mouth and in his hand, the logistical challenge of lips and teeth and timing his breathing. Medic smelled pleasantly musky, tasted just clean enough, and he was remarkably good at keeping his hips still.

 

The sounds he was making began to reach a peak, and Spy abruptly realised that the German words he was grunting out constituted a warning that-

 

Oh. Ugh. Well, he hadn’t missed that part. His own fault though, he had a deplorable tendency to miss things said to him in other languages when he was concentrating on something else. Spy pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth, while the doctor fastened his flies, pulled off his tie, and stuffed it carelessly into the pocket of his jodhpurs. 

 

Spy supposed that that constituted the end of the evening. At least, convention suggested that it should. They both ought to pick themselves up and slope off to their rooms and never speak of this again. That was how it generally went with male colleagues, was it not? However, Spy found he didn’t particularly want to leave. He felt pleasantly lazy and unfocused, the alcohol still buzzing around his system. All he really wanted to do was be still and warm and-

 

As if he’d read his thoughts, Medic caught hold of the shoulder of Spy’s shirt and pulled him towards him.

 

“I am not so young anymore,” he mused. “Let us rest for a little vhile, yes?”

 

“Mmm,” was all the reply that Spy could muster, and they lay back down on the floor, arms curled comfortably around one another. It felt far more comfortable than a layer of thin carpet over concrete should be, and the doctor gave off a good deal of warmth. It would do no harm, this, Spy decided. Just for a little while, he could rest here.

 

*

 

They woke to the sound of the door crashing inwards, which was decidedly unpleasant.

 

Spy jerked up into a sitting position and saw, thankfully, their own Heavy standing in the doorway of the rec room, a ragged hole in the door frame where he’d forced the door open in spite of the lock. He ran his eyes over the two of them with a stern expression, took in the empty bottles and the scattered board game paraphernalia, and then stared straight at the Medic.

 

“Engineer is looking for you,” he said coolly. “He will not say why, but that you will understand.”

 

“Ah, ach mein gott!” Medic exclaimed, pulling his watch from his pocket and staring at it in astonishment. “Ja, vhere is he?”

 

“Is going to furnace room.”

 

“Excuse me Spy,” Medic said hurriedly, and he had his boots on, his hair smoothed down, and was on his way to the door before Spy could do more than murmur out a reply. 

 

Heavy stepped into the room to let him pass through the doorway, and then remained there, staring hard at Spy. Spy hadn’t received that sort of  _ look  _ from the Russian since he had first arrived at the base. That first time, knowing so little about him, it had been rather unsettling. Now, however, it was rather intriguing.

 

“Whatever are you so cross about,” Spy asked him smoothly, leaning back against the front of the sofa and reaching for his jacket.

 

“You and Doctor...why are you doing?”

 

Spy snorted and pulling his cigarette case out of his jacket pocket. “Doing what, exactly?”

 

Heavy narrowed his eyes at him.

 

“Why do I get the feeling you are presuming rather a lot, Heavy?”

 

Heavy looked surprised for a moment, then purposefully ran his eyes down the front of Spy’s body to where - ah. He never had gotten around to refastening his trousers, had he. 

 

“Very well Heavy, I concede the point. But why do you feel you have the right to question what two grown men do in private, hm?” He pulled up his zipper, lit his cigarette and watched with only marginal satisfaction and Heavy’s expression turned from righteous anger into hurt confusion. He didn’t seem able to come up with a response.

 

“You are rather fond of the doctor, aren’t you,” Spy stated. “May I assume that you are aware that I am not the only member of our merry band with whom he is ‘doing’?”

 

Heavy returned to glaring at him.

 

Spy tutted. “If you are envious, it is your own issue,” he said firmly. “Do not try and lay it at my door.” With which, he rose to his feet, slipped his jacket back on, scooped the game pieces back into their box and put the empty bottles into the large, dented metal planter that served as a wastebasket. When he turned back to Heavy, the man was still standing in the same spot, shoulders slumped and expression defeated.

 

Spy sighed, picked up the two surviving bottles of liquor, and handed the wine to Heavy.

 

“Whatever is happening, do hurry and settle it,” he told him. “If you two are not getting along, it makes life harder for the rest of us.”

 

“...da,” Heavy replied quietly, staring at the dark green bottle in his hand.

 

Spy left the rec room and headed off through the quiet night time corridors, trying to keep the smirk off his face. This should be interesting.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still coming along rather slowly, but rest assured it will be finished. I hope you're still enjoying it. Do please drop me a line and let me know what you think if you have time :)


	6. Traditional Remedies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There vill be a little sharp pain, but it vill abate quickly,” he said with confidence, then began kneading with his fingers so hard that Sniper thought for a second that he’d put a hole in his skin.

Every so often, maybe once a year or a little more, the bases got reshuffled a bit. Usually it wasn’t much; a walkway changed here, a ditch extended there, and more often than not they barely noticed it, as it’d generally happen while they were off at another base. This time, however, they shut down the battlefield for two whole days and, when the lads were finally let back at it, the place was completely new, like a damn maze.

 

No word of a reason for it, no warning, just a badly drawn map spread out on the briefing room table, and an hour at dusk the evening before to check out the lay of the land. Soldier went out, of course, ran all over the bloody place for about ten minutes then got trapped in some sort of crow’s nest set-up and had to be talked down. Heavy went to walk the battlements, reassure himself that the new built sections would take his and Sasha’s combined weight. Spy probably went for a wander around too, though nobody saw him.

 

Sniper was the only one who had a really serious go at exploring, looking for nests, bolt holes, anything useful. And damn if it didn’t pay off.

He’d actually managed to find a spot that the other team’s Spy couldn’t figure out how to get up to. Didn’t stop his opposite number from taking a few shots at him, but still. Best damn score he’d ever had.

 

Miss Pauling had come and congratulated him personally, talked about getting him a coupla’ new prototypes maybe. Scout glared at him, a lot, silly bugger. Engie and Soldier both seemed pleased as hell with him.

 

The only downside was, as he’d lasted in the one spot for far longer than usual, he’d actually got a bit of a crick in his back. It’d happened a lot early on in his career, ‘til one of his clients who was a bit of a borderline hippy suggested the yoga. He’d thought it was a load of nonsense at first, but once he got the hang of it, it was pretty damned effective. His dad had been having back problems since he was thirty. Sniper was four inches taller than his dad, and was getting on for forty now, and he only ever had the odd twinge.

 

Still, the crick was annoying. It’d been a few hours now and it was still showing no signs of easing off. Holding out little hope for a decent nights sleep later, he decided to get something done about it, and headed off to the infirmary.

 

The place was sometimes dangerous territory. The Medic could go either way; one day he might just hand you a painkiller or whatever and send you on your way, another he might decide to try and guile you into helping out with one of his little experiments, and before you knew what was happening you’d be strapped to a table watching your own kidneys float about in a jar, listening to a story about what he did to the organs of a Nazi general in Montreal in ‘49 and laughing in spite of yourself. Mind you, he’d seemed a bit calmer lately, maybe even subdued. A little disinterested in his usual gruesome stuff. If Sniper hadn’t known him so well, he’d have thought the guy was sad about something, but the concept didn’t quite sit right.

 

He knocked on the infirmary door before pushing it open, and found Medic leaning over some sort of Doctor Jekyll-like set up of glass tubes and flasks on a long lab table. In a big cylinder to one side, some sort of little pasty looking ball floated in greenish fluid. Yuck.

 

“Vhat is the problem?” the Medic asked without looking up.

 

“Got a pain in me back,” Sniper said, stepping into the room and letting the door swing closed behind him. “Can you gimme some painkillers or somethin’?”

 

The doctor looked up and looked him over. “I assume it isn’t severe? No actual injury?”

 

“Just stood in the same position for a bit too long. I’ve gotten used to a bit more runnin’ about.”

 

Medic snorted. “You and I both, mein freund. Let me check you over and see if I can’t get rid of it vithout drugs, eh? I know you prefer not to take synthetic medicines.”

 

Sniper nodded and let the Medic sit him on the edge of the examination table. He slipped off his shirt and t-shirt and, a moment later, the doctor ran his fingertips down over his shoulderblades.

 

“All right, vhere exactly is the pain?”

 

“Just below the right blade,” Sniper said, reaching back to prod at the spot with his thumb.

 

“Does it feel like it’s underneath the edge of the bone?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“It’s a common place for knots to form,” the doctor murmured, pressing what felt like his thumbs into the flesh beneath the shoulder blade. “Especially vhen you keep your shoulder lifted up as you do vhen you are aiming. I think I can massage it away. Lie down on your front, bitte.”

 

He stepped away from the table and Sniper climbed up onto the surface, his stomach cringing away from the cold plastic padding that covered it. He settled down as best he could, his hands one on top of the other under his collar bones, and tried not to think about the fact that the last time he’d gotten a massage it had been from one of the ‘ladies’ at a bordello in Bangkok. 

 

The Medic touched his back again, hands warm through a coating of slippy, chilly liquid. They smoothed over his upper back before pressing in on the troublesome spot, pressing in deep. 

 

“There vill be a little sharp pain, but it vill abate quickly,” he said with confidence, then began kneading with his fingers so hard that Sniper thought for a second that he’d put a hole in his skin.

 

Sure as he said, a moment later there was a jolt of pain through his shoulder blade that had him gritting his teeth. A second after, it passed, and he realised it had taken the rotten little crick with it.

 

“That’s got it,” he murmured, relieved.

 

“You are qvite badly knotted though,” Medic said thoughtfully. “Vould you like me to check the rest of your back and see if there are any other troubling spots?”

 

Sniper glanced towards the experiment set up on the other side of the room. “You got time doc?”

 

“Ja, my current experiment just needs time to brew at the moment.” He placed his hands fat on Sniper’s shoulders and pressed down, smoothing the skin and pressing the heels in gently.

 

“Brew? You make it sound like you’re makin’ beer.”

 

“Oh no, ha. Sadly no. I vouldn’t mind making some if I could only find a decent spot to put the keg vhere it vouldn’t be disturbed. No, I’m making an eye.”

 

He shoved his fingers into the lower edge of Sniper’s left shoulder blade hard and suddenly, so that Sniper’s reply emerged as a wheeze; “An eye?!”

 

“For Demoman.”

 

“Oh, right.”

 

The Medic didn’t say anything else for a while. He just seemed to be concentrating on examining and massaging Sniper’s back. Which, well, Sniper wasn’t about to complain. It felt great, warming and soothing, just a little jab of fast fading pain every now and then when the doc found another knot. Aches he hadn’t even been aware of were vanishing from under his skin, and he was feeling so relaxed he could have turned into liquid and dripped away down the drain. He heard a little sound, a creaking noise of enjoyment, make its way out of his own throat, and the doc gave a little chuckle.

 

“Enjoying this, are you? I don’t blame you.” He paused a little and then; “I’ll do your lower back too, shall I? Undo your belt please, and push your jeans down a little vay.”

 

Sniper’s thoughts flickered back to Bangkok again. Was the Medic…

 

Well, whatever the hell he was up to, Sniper was pretty sure he was game. He rolled onto his side and pulled his belt loose, noting the way the Medic’s eyes tracked down his bare front and watched the movements of his hands. He undid his flies, then shoved his jeans down off his hips, not quite showing off his tackle, before turning back onto his front.

 

“All yours, Doctor.”

 

The Medic cleared his throat a little, gave a little giggle, and then Sniper heard him pick up and set down what sounded like a glass container. When he placed his hands back on Sniper’s skin, they were even more slippery than before.

 

“Most tall men experience some pain in the lumbar region at some point,” Medic explained in a quiet tone that lent his clinical words a touch of intimacy. “Vith your height and the way you vork, I am surprised you don’t have more trouble.”

 

“Yoga,” Sniper muttered.

 

“Ah, you must be very flexible.”

 

“Mmm.” 

 

The Medic gave another little laugh at that, and kept up the massage, firm strokes into Sniper’s skin, from mid back all the way down to the tops of his buttocks and back, over and over. It felt fantastic, every stroke spreading subtle, teasing warmth into his thighs and through his pelvis, slowly getting him heated up.

 

If he’d been at all worried that he was reading the situation wrong, that was over when Medic’s hands started lingering at his waistband on every downstroke, kneading into the flesh just below his hipbones before nudging the fabric down, just a little more on each pass. A little more, and a little more still, and Sniper rolled his hips just enough that the fabric slipped down under him and the next pass left his ass cheeks bare.

 

“You know,” Medic said, voice still so smoothly intimate, “You have such a nice little bottom. Your clothes do not do you justice.”

 

“You reckon?”

 

“Mm. Those brown jeans you wear in the field, they make your backside look flat. But you actually have rather an appealing curve.”

 

He laid his warm, slippery palms directly onto Sniper’s buttocks and gave the muscles a firm squeeze, the first real move, subtlety dropped finally. 

 

“I got a lotta nice stuff,” Sniper said. “So do you.” 

 

“I am very glad you think so,” the Medic said, and then his touch trickled in and down, turned into a careful, deliberate caress down the crack of Sniper’s ass. Sniper grunted and pushed his hips up, heard the Medic’s quick intake of breath. Evidently he took it as the invitation that Sniper had intended; two slick fingers rubbed around the rim of his hole, the good sensation making him grunt, and when he shoved his hips up again, the doctor made a sweet little groan and pushed the tip of one finger in.

 

“You’re gonna ‘ave to give me more’n that,” Sniper ground out, and Medic laughed and placed a hand on the small of his back, held him there firmly and leaned in to hiss in his ear; “As much as you want, mein freund.”

 

Two fingers inside him all the way to the knuckles, so suddenly it made his eyes bulge, and without so much as a twitch of pain. He just had time to think that, bloody hell, the Medic was actually really good with bodies, before the tips of both those fingers dug hard into him just on either side of that really nice little bit he could never remember the name of, and the pleasure of it hit him in exactly the same was as the pain had when the Medic had dug into his sore shoulder.

 

Sniper shut his eyes and held his hips still, clawed both hands into the plastic cover of the table and grunted with each rubbing push the Medic’s fingers gave him. His dick was drooling fluid, little sloppy bursts of it with each rub, and he could hear the Medic’s breathing getting heavy over the sound of his own.

 

Faster than he probably should have, he jerked his body forwards and down, the Medic’s fingers popping out of his ass with a wet slurp, and he swung himself off the exam table.

 

“Vas-” Medic began, looking upset, but Sniper shook his head at him and started pulling off his boots.

 

“Get up on that table,” he said. “On your back, just as you are.” Medic gave him a wide grin and did as he was told, hopped all spritely like onto the table and lay back, propped up on his elbows. Sniper tore off his jeans and climbed back onto the table, straddling the doctor’s thighs. He was still fully dressed but for his labcoat, and when Sniper unbuttoned his weird baggy trousers and pulled his dick into the open air, he looked so fucking debauched it made him feel hungry. Staring down the length of his own body at Sniper’s bare groin, the Medic grinned even wider and, without tearing his gaze away, reached out a hand to grope on the nearby table for the jar of surgical lube he must have been using in place of massage oil.

 

“I never would have thought you were so eager to bottom,” he said, and the tone of his voice told Sniper that he’d said it to watch the reaction, see how hard he could push.

 

“Happy with anythin’, as long as I can have it the way I want,” he replied, and Medic let out a loud bark of laughter and allowed Sniper to snatch the jar out of his hand and push him down into his back. Sniper scooped his fingers into the jar and tossed the rest back onto the table, then grabbed hold of the Medic’s dick and squeezed it hard enough to make him squawk, twisting and sliding his grip up and down to make sure the slick was spread out. “Stay still,” he said, then he got himself up onto his knees, scooted forwards, and lowered himself down.

 

Medic had a pretty nice cock, on the thick side and with a nice curve to it, and Sniper took it in one slow slide. Medic had both his hands clenched on the sides of the exam table, the back of his head pressed hard into the padding in an effort not to move. 

 

“Keep your hands right where they are,” Sniper told him. “I’ll take care’a everythin’.”

 

“Ja,” Medic replied breathily, and he lifted his head to look down at where their bodies joined, as Sniper lifted himself on his knees, rolled his hips up, and slammed back down hard enough to make half a dozen different bits of the lab rattle.

 

_ Fuck _ that felt good.

 

He grabbed the front of the doctor’s waistcoat with both hands, clenched the fabric in his fists as he rode. Been a long time since he’d had another man like this but the body didn’t forget and any little flares of pain that taking him so fast had let loose were fading into sharp, hot pleasure, burning brighter and brighter with each lift and drop of his hips. The Medic was panting and groaning under him, all the muscle of his solid torso clenched down to try and keep himself still, his face red and his glasses askew, and why the fuck had Sniper never realised how hot he was before tonight? They coulda been doing this a month ago when Sniper had been so fucking horny he’d been seriously considering cutting a hole in his mattress.

 

He grabbed his cock with his slick hand and started to stroke himself, and all at once the pleasure in his ass kicked up into something else entirely, the huge sensation of it rattling around inside his pelvis, muscles twitching and balls pulling tight. He still had one hand gripping Medic’s waistcoat like it was a set of reins, and he held on tight while he leaned back, got the angle of his dick just right inside him and rubbed himself down on it while he stroked, again, again, again-

 

He yelled like a hyena when he came, the sound echoing dully around the infirmary, and Medic’s cry joined it moments later, his come surging up into Sniper’s ass at the same time that Sniper’s came spattering down over Medic’s nice smart clothes. A few more rocking thrusts on top of him, just to make sure, and they were both starting to soften up, both starting to really feel out of breath as all the panting caught up with them. Sniper lifted himself off Medic’s dick, and Medic spread his legs to give Sniper room enough to sit down on the exam table between them.

 

They both panted for a bit. Then they caught one another’s gaze and shared a grin.

 

“That was pretty bloody good,” Sniper said.

 

“Ja,” Medic agreed, wiping his forehead with his shirt sleeve. “I take it your back feels better?”

 

“What?” Actually it felt better than it had in ages. Sniper snorted a laugh. “Yeah, actually it feels great.”

 

“And no synthetic medicines! We’ve had a great success here my friend!” Medic said brightly, and Sniper laughed for real. 

 

He got down from the table and pulled his jeans and t-shirt back on, stuck his feet into his boots not bothering with his socks. When he looked back, the Medic was still lounging on the table, picking at the front of his waistcoat.

 

“I’ve got a wash to do tomorrow,” Sniper said a touch guiltily. “Give it here, I’ll clean it up.”

 

“Oh? Danke,” Medic said, and he took the garment off and handed it to him.

 

Sniper stood there holding it for a second, feeling a bit lost. He was always shit at this part. What did he say? Should he just say goodnight and leave? Should he approach the possibility of doing it again? Which, he wasn’t exactly averse to, but when Medic was in one of his freaky moods he didn’t even want to be in the same building with him…

 

“Be sure and come back if your shoulders hurt again, ja?” he said smoothly. “Just for your shoulders...or not.”

 

Damn if that wasn’t exactly the right thing to say. “Sure, thanks doc,” Sniper replied, and he draped the waistcoat over his arm with his own shirt and left the infirmary, a spring in his step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting through these slowly but surely, and I hope there are still people out there who are enjoying it.  
> Have fun, and if you have time, please leave me feedback as I love it to bits. :D


	7. Alternative Therapies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heavy suppressed a sigh. “Scout, I have no time for foolishness. Please say what you mean.”
> 
> Scout sidled up beside him looking furtive. “‘Kay,” he said. “Y’wanna bang?”
> 
> There was a second when Heavy’s knowledge of English slang failed him and he genuinely thought that Scout was asking him if he wanted to be struck or detonated or something. Then the alternative meaning sank in and he could only stare at Scout with astonishment.

The Medic and the Sniper both had very distinct voices, the Medic’s lilting and smooth, the Sniper’s low and rough. They were easy to pick out in any conversation, and they carried easily through such barriers as doors.

 

To Heavy, standing outside the infirmary doors with his hand raised to knock, it was quite obvious that both of the men were inside. And it was equally obvious that they were not engaging in mere conversation.

 

Heavy froze for a moment, considering throwing open the doors and storming into the room, tearing Sniper away from the doctor and offering himself in his place. But no. He stepped back, took a deep breath, and walked away from the infirmary.

 

This had been going on for weeks now, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could bear it. Once acknowledged, his affection for and attachment to the Medic had only grown, and he felt that he needed to at least make the other man understand what he wanted from him, what he felt for him. However, as his own feelings warmed, the Medic’s had seemed to cool, to the point where he now avoided being alone in a room with Heavy, and steered away from all but the most banal of conversational topics. Where they had once had long conversations on philosophy and social sciences, conversations that lasted well into the night and left them both glowing with satisfaction in the harmony that existed between them, they now discussed the weather, and what was for dinner, before Medic hurried away with his chin tucked to his chest.

 

It was saddening and infuriating. And lonely. Heavy was not the sort of man who would turn against somebody for refusing him, but he felt he had at least the right to know why he had been rejected, or even to really make his case before being turned down. But no, Medic had given him the cold shoulder and showed no signs of softening towards him.

 

And yet, Heavy had seen with his own eyes, or heard with his own ears, the evidence of the Medic’s sexual relations with every other member of their team. The Scout he had witnessed first hand. The Soldier and Demoman, and now the Sniper, he had overheard. He had found the doctor and the Spy sprawled on the floor together in a room smelling distinctly of sex. And as for the Engineer, the only evidence he had was that the Medic had left the other man’s bedroom in the middle of the day, pink cheeked and with his necktie hanging out of his pocket. (The Medic, Heavy had observed, always put his necktie in his pocket after sex.)

 

Why everyone else and not Heavy? The only other person left out was Pyro, and for all Heavy knew the Medic could easily have been sleeping with him as well, just simple coincidence keeping him from finding out. It was upsetting, infuriating, and he had to use all his willpower not to add insulting to the list. He couldn’t allow himself to take it personally that the doctor had chosen to decline his advances. That sort of possessive thinking was unhealthy, and rather hard to resist.

 

All it came down to was that he desired the Medic. Desired his personality and his body and his affection. He was not desired in return. And Heavy would just have to live with that.

 

As he made his way slowly through the halls of the base, back towards his room, he became aware of the clatter of cleats on the tiled floor behind him, and turned to find the Scout striding towards him with a purposeful look in his eye.

 

This never boded well.

 

“What you want?” Heavy asked, and felt a little mean when Scout’s steps faltered, some of the confidence leaching from his face.

 

“I, uh… I thought maybe we could help each other out, big guy,” the Scout replied, with what Heavy assumed was supposed to be a charming wink.

 

“I do not need any help.”

 

“Well you say that  _ now _ , sure, but I uh…”

 

Heavy could actually see Scout’s mind whirring to come up with something cool to say. He wasn’t even sure to what end. Did he want to borrow something? Some help with one of his silly pranks? Heavy was in no mood either way. He turned and kept walking.

 

“Hey! Heavy, shit, wait up!”

 

Heavy suppressed a sigh. “Scout, I have no time for foolishness. Please say what you mean.”

 

Scout sidled up beside him looking furtive. “‘Kay,” he said. “Y’wanna bang?”

 

There was a second when Heavy’s knowledge of English slang failed him and he genuinely thought that Scout was asking him if he wanted to be struck or detonated or something. Then the alternative meaning sank in and he could only stare at Scout with astonishment. Which must have looked like anger, because Scout immediately started gabbling nervously.

 

“I mean, I’m totally up fer it, and you seemed pretty into me that time with the doc’, and I mean, why wouldn’t you be, right?” He did a little turn and some sort of straining motion with his arms. “Right? Yeah!”

 

“Scout-”

 

“I mean, the others, they don’t get it. Don’t see it, but you, you already got an eyeful. And you liked it yeah?”

 

Heavy stared at him, not quite sure what he wanted to say.

 

“Y-yeah?” Scout repeated querulously.

 

Heavy sighed. “Scout, you are very nice looking young man. But -”

 

“Hell yeah!” Scout yelled, and grabbed Heavy by the hand, dragging him off along the corridor. Or at least he tried to. Heavy knew from experience however that, if he just planted his feet and stood still, Scout would injure himself before giving up on trying to tow him, so he began to walk slowly, Scout scuffling ahead of him.

 

“Scout, you say about the others… you asked them all?”

 

“Yeah. But they dunno what they’re doin’, man! Turnin’ down alla this?” He turned back to Heavy and made an encompassing gesture that took in his whole self. “Don’t think cause I asked you last you were last choice though, big guy. You’re just kinda hard to find.”

 

Fair point. Heavy had spent much of the last few days in the furnace room behind the Engineer’s lab, working on new components for Sasha. Scout hated the furnace room.

 

“Why do you not ask Medic? You already know that he is, ah, willing.”

 

“You kiddin’ me?” Scout cried. “I got wild oats to plant, or whatever. I’m young! I mean, it was great losin’ my dude cherry with him an’ all, but I want a little variety. Dunno why the others’ll screw him an’ not me though.”

 

A sharp pang of pain went through Heavy’s chest and he felt an abrupt, unexpected empathy for Scout.

  
“He is more experienced than you,” he said soothingly. “He knows how to approach men, how to be charming.”

 

“What? I’m charmin’ as fuck!”

 

“Scout-”

 

“Hell, I got you, don’t I?” the young man said with a cheeky, leering smile. 

 

That smile was so confident, and yet, Heavy was sure, so fragile. He remembered being this young, or at least having such young sensibilities; so desperate to learn and please, and so easily shattered by refusal or mockery.

And Scout was a  _ very _ good looking young man, even if not in the way he thought he was.

And it would be so good to feel the touch of somebody who wanted him, to be allowed to bring pleasure to a person he was fond of, even if it was not the person he most desired.

 

“Da,” he said, giving in. “You got me.”

 

Scout pumped his fist up and down with a jubilant hiss of “Yesssss!”

 

Then he swiped open the door next to him, Heavy belatedly realising that he had been led to Scout’s own quarters, and did his level best to yank Heavy inside. Heavy went along with him, glancing around the messy room as Scout pushed the door shut behind them. The room was untidy, and yet there was a certain orderliness to it at the same time. All of Scout’s magazines were stacked on the floor in one corner, his clothes were neatly folded despite being scattered about the room, and there had clearly been an attempt at properly making up the bed, albeit an unsuccessful one.

 

Heavy turned to Scout, who was already hurriedly unlacing his shoes, perched on the edge of the bed.

 

“What exactly you want?” he asked.

 

“Huh?” Scout looked up at his with surprise. “Uh… sex. Fuckin’.”

 

Heavy stifled a sigh and, seeing that the youth had managed to get his fingers tangled in the laces in his haste, knelt down to help him. “There is more than one way to do,” he said, picking the knots apart carefully. “Tell me exactly what is you want.”

 

“... Oh,” Scout said, and Heavy looked up at his face to see the most extraordinary expression of revelation dawning across Scout’s face. Had he not realised what he could potentially have? Heavy had a quick think; he would be quite happy to suck Scout’s cock he decided, as long as he received something in return. He wasn’t too sure about letting the youth fuck him, not because he didn’t enjoy it but more that he didn’t really like breaking in virgins to that particular act. 

 

“I liked when Medic … you know.”

 

“Up butt?”

 

“Jeez, learn some damn eumaphisms, will ya?!” Scout exploded, turning bright red. “Yeah, that. But… I guess…” He broke off and rubbed at the back of his neck, clearly embarrassed.

 

Heavy pulled Scout’s shoes off his feet and laid them aside, before gently taking hold of Scout’s chin and making him meet his eyes. “What is?”

 

“Your dick’s really big.”   
  


“Da.”

 

“Like, really frickin’ huge.”

 

“Is so.”

 

“... Could it even fit in there?”

 

Heavy smiled. “I tell you the other time, when you are with Doctor; is not so difficult.”

 

Scout smiled at him, just a little bit of a smirk to it. “Oh yeah?”

 

“Da.”

 

“Y’gonna show me?”

 

Heavy put a hand on Scout’s chest and pushed him back onto the bed.

 

There was a bit of a scuffle while they both got out of their clothes; Heavy shed his easily, while Scout ended up struggling to get his britches off, Heavy suspected because he had been trying to do so sexily and had caught himself up in the fabric. After a minute or two though, they were both undressed, and Heavy settled himself onto the mattress next to Scout while the youth groped around under the bed for a jar of lubricant. It was the same stuff Heavy had seen dozens of time in the infirmary, and he wondered for a brief moment if the Doctor had given it to him, if he’d given advice along with it. Then Scout rolled over towards him and grabbed at his genitals and he determinedly forgot about the Doctor.

 

“Holy  _ shit _ that’s big,” Scout cried delightedly, squeezing uncomfortably firmly at Heavy’s half hard cock. Heavy pulled his hand away and got Scout to look him in the face again.

 

“No need to start so fast,” he said. “Is nice to have some foreplay.”

 

Scout looked confused. “Uhh, neither of us is a chick, big guy.”

 

“Not so to get wet, just to feel nice. Come here.” Heavy lay down on his side and drew Scout into his arms, stroked his hair and his back gently to soothe his excited jitters, and kissed him. Scout wasn’t a bad kisser, but he tried too hard to take the lead, sucking and tonguing and scraping his teeth, until the warmth and comfort of Heavy’s arms around him calmed him enough to relax and share instead. 

 

Heavy liked having a lover wrapped up in his arms, was very glad that he was big enough to do it so thoroughly. It felt so good, so tantalising, to feel another body’s warmth and pulse and slow, small movements, with the promise of greater pleasure not so far away. And perhaps it was not the body he longed for, not so broad or so tall, lacking in bulk of muscle and fat, lacking in hair…

 

No. He stopped his thoughts before they could get any further along that track. To think of the Doctor while here with Scout was disrespectful to them both. He was fortunate and privileged to be in this fresh, eager young man’s bed, and he would not spoil this opportunity.

 

Heavy pulled away from the kiss and raised his head to take a good look at Scout’s face. It was pink to the roots of his hair, and his expression was dazed and elated. It was rather flattering.

 

“You know how to get open?”

 

“Y-yeah,” Scout replied breathily, and he fumbled for the jar, opened it, and stuck two of his fingers into the contents. He turned onto his back, and Heavy pulled him close once more, cupped a hand under Scout’s thigh supportively when he saw what position the youth was going for. Laying back comfortably, his head pillowed on Heavy’s arm, legs lifted and spread, Scout began to carefully finger himself open. Heavy leaned down and kissed him again.

 

It was hard not to raise his head and watch Scout’s hand working away between his thighs, but the sweetness of kissing him, the delight of the small sounds and sighs of pleasure he made against Heavy’s lips, kept him in place for long, lazy minutes. When he felt Scout starting to shift his hips into the movements of his own hand, Heavy reached down to touch him. He caressed his rigid cock, a gentle and teasing stroke, then reached lower, grasping the back of Scout’s hand and pulling it away. Scout made a questioning noise against Heavy’s lips, and then his lips parted around a loud gasp, as Heavy carefully pushed his own index finger inside him.

 

“Holy shit!” Scout hissed.

 

“Feel okay?”

 

“ _ Fuuuuuuuuuuck _ ” Scout moaned, pushing his hips down against him, which Heavy took as a yes.

 

Scout’s slippery hand clutched at his shoulder as Heavy carefully shifted his position. He leaned over Scout’s torso, his finger still moving gently inside him, and lowered his head to kiss the centre of his chest. His sternum was hard under the youthful softness of his skin, and Heavy could not resist nuzzling a little with the tip of his nose. Scout cursed a little more and, when Heavy began working another of his fingers into him, began whining loudly.

 

“Is it even gonna go in there?”

 

“Yes, is okay,” Heavy murmured to him. “We go slow, get you ready.”   
  


“It’s gonna be too fuckin big!” Scout gurgled, and Heavy raised his gaze to see Scout’s head tipped back, his eyes rolled up in their sockets and his skin brightly flushed. Was he actually  _ enjoying  _ complaining about Heavy’s penis? Deciding to do his best to ignore it, Heavy concentrated on getting a second finger into the youth’s hole-

 

“Aaargh holy fuck, man!”

 

-before lowering his head again to lick at Scout’s nipple.

 

Scout shrieked like a kicked cat.

 

“Wha-wha the fuck!” he sputtered, glaring accusingly at Heavy.

 

“Is your nipple.”

 

“Yeah but, it’s not supposed to- don’t just put your tongue on stuff!”

 

Heavy curled his fingers again and Scout subsided into garbled noises. He lowered his head and licked again. Another squawk.

 

“Is not just women like,” he said sagely. “Nipples of men have many nerves. Feels good.”

 

“Weird,” Scout wheezed, and then his head dropped back onto the pillows as Heavy pursed his lips around the little pink bud and gave it a suck. He kept it up, Scout making drowning noises throughout, while he slipped his fingers out of Scout’s ass, fumbled in the jar for more lubricant, and then slipped the fingers back in to begin working in a third.

 

This was more of a challenge, the thickness of his fingers starting to really force Scout open. Heavy could tell that he was struggling to keep himself relaxed enough. Heavy slid down the bed, careful with his fingers as he moved, kissing his way down Scout’s smooth, firm tummy, until he could breathe warmly over his cock.

 

Scout dug both hands into the bedclothes and wailed. 

 

“Relax for me and I get you off,” he promised. “A little more, and I can fuck you. You can come more than one time, da?”

 

“Y-yeah,” Scout replied faintly, and he started breathing deeply, the tension bleeding out of his frame until Heavy’s fingers could move more easily in and out of him. True to his word, as he began working his smallest finger into Scout’s ass, no doubt pushing him to his limit, Heavy opened his mouth and licked a hot stripe up the underside of the pretty, pink cock.

 

Scout had possibly the largest and most varied repertoire of noises that Heavy had ever heard from a bed partner. He moaned and burbled and produced streams of half-words and glottal consonants, as Heavy carefully stroked him open and mouthed him to orgasm. It didn’t take him long to come at all, spilling oddly sweet semen into Heavy’s mouth without warning.

 

“You drink too much soda,” Heavy told him, wiping his mouth.

 

“Wha? Fuck, is your whole damn hand in there?” Scout demanded weakly.

 

“Almost. I think you are ready.”

 

Scout grinned like he was indestructible. “Give it to me, big guy, I can take it.”

 

His attitude, so often a cause of annoyance, was suddenly terribly endearing, and Heavy could not help but lean down and kiss him again. Then he knelt between Scout’s legs, picked up the lubricant, smeared it onto the length of his erection, and-

 

“Uh, that thing got bigger since I looked at it before.”

 

Heavy frowned. “Da.”

 

“Uhh…” Scout looked worriedly between Heavy’s penis and his own groin. Heavy quickly made up his mind not to give the youth too much time in which to second guess himself, and lifted his skinny hips into his lap.

 

“I won’t hurt you,” he reassured him. “Will be gentle, just relax.”

 

Scout nodded agitatedly, then flinched when the tip of Heavy’s cock pushed between his buttocks, holding himself in place by force of will. As gently as he could, Heavy pressed forwards and breached him. He’d done well to be so careful in his preparations; Scout’s ass was tight but didn’t feel so tight as he knew would hurt. Scout was oddly quiet, breathing heavily and letting out only the smallest squeak as the head of Heavy’s cock popped into him.

 

“Okay?” Heavy asked, forcing himself to stay still.

 

“Yeah,” Scout gasped. “Gi- give it to me.”

 

Heavy rolled his eyes at the bravado, but cupped Scout’s hips in his hands and pressed forward further, sinking into him until he saw Scout wince, then easing back out, pressing forwards and easing out, the same cautious rhythm he had learned the very first time he had experienced sex and which had never failed him.

 

Sure enough, he was soon deep enough in Scout’s body that Scout was keening and twitching in pleasure, his cock stiffening again. “You are all right?” Heavy asked him.

 

“Fuuuck…” Scout breathed, which wasn’t really a very satisfying answer, but he was grinning like an idiot so Heavy took it as an affirmative. He was getting to the point where he could stop worrying about hurting and really enjoy himself, though he was had only a little more than half of his length inside Scout, and doubted he would fit any further. He allowed himself to focus more on the heat and snugness of Scout’s body around the sensitive head of his cock, the willowy flex of the youth’s long legs around his waist. 

 

Even Scout’s moans were becoming more and more enjoyable, earnest and unashamed, louder and louder as Heavy took him with more vigour. He arched and twisted ecstatically, his hands clenching in the sheets one moment, stretching up to squeeze at the muscle of Heavy’s arms the next. Breathless and desperate and yearning, Scout was lovely in a way that he himself would possibly never understand.

 

Heavy could feel pleasure coalescing inside him, just as he saw Scout reach both hands to stroke his own cock, his knuckles brushing against Heavy’s belly, his face going slack. Heavy bit down a shout as he started to come, spilling himself into Scout as Scout spattered his own spend over both of them.

 

The moment that Heavy’s cock slipped free of him, Scout sprawled out dramatically on the bed, and let out a hearty half moan-half yell of; “ _ Fuuuuuuck _ !” which seemed to be his favourite word to use in the bedroom. Heavy leaned over him on his hands and knees, panting for a minute, before he gathered himself and looked between Scout’s thighs. No blood. He was a mess, and Heavy knew from experience that he’d probably have trouble walking for a while (and doubtless be mad at him for it), but he was unharmed. Good.

 

“You do well,” he told Scout, lying down at the youth’s side.

 

“Fuck yeah,” Scout replied, grinning sleepily. “Best god damn ass you-” he was cut off by a massive yawn, and Heavy couldn’t help but smile at him. 

 

They lay there side by side, sweaty skin settling in the mild air, for long lazy minutes, Scout drowsy and smug, Heavy simply enjoying the feeling of pleasant lassitude that he had gone so long without experiencing. He thought that Scout was asleep, until a knock sounded on the door and, in a slightly weakened approximation of his normal voice, Scout yelled out; “Come in if you don’t mind naked hotties!”

 

Heavy scowled as the door slowly opened but, in spite of his sudden dread for a worst case scenario, the mildly confused face that peered into the room was not that of the Soldier or the Spy, or even Miss Pauling.

 

It was much worse than any of those.

 

It was the Medic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know, it's been AGES! I'll hopefully be done with this story soon. Hopefully there are still some people out there enjoying it :D


	8. The Talking Cure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Vhat exactly do you vant?” the Medic asked him acidly. 
> 
> “Want to settle things,” Heavy told him. “Know why you behave so strangely to me, why so upset when you see me and Scout.”
> 
> The doctor’s face twitched at the mention of Scout’s name and glint in his eyes turned into a glare.

Heavy was furious.

 

It had been three days since the Medic had walked in on him and Scout, and in those three days he had been treated to more dirty looks than he had received from the guards in the gulag. Everywhere he went in the base, every time he stepped onto the battlefield, there was Medic, glaring at him like he was trying to kill him with his eyes.

 

But that wasn’t the part that pissed Heavy off. The doctor had turned him down, sure, okay. Disappointing, but Heavy would get over it. But if he thought that that gave him some right to be jealous, he was even crazier than he’d thus far appeared. Heavy couldn’t stand it! He would not have men laying claim to him without giving anything in return!

 

Finally, now, at the end of a long a difficult day spent successfully avoiding the Medic’s presence while failing to avoid thinking about him, Heavy decided that he had had enough. Once and for all, he wanted to settle this. He wanted a confrontation. It was still early in the evening, dinner having been eaten and cleared away, most of the team were gathered in the rec room to play cards. Heavy checked in on them, and saw that Medic wasn’t there. No Pyro or Spy either, but then they rarely joined in.

(A mutinous part of Heavy’s mind suggested that maybe they weren’t there because they were with the Medic, in his lab, making noises that could be overheard from outside the door, but he pushed the thought aside.)

Standing outside the rec room, Heavy thought carefully. It would be best to confront the Medic in a neutral space, though a mean part of him wanted to seek the man out in his quarters and tell him off there. He didn’t have any idea where Medic’s quarters were though; they were certainly not on either of the wings of the base where the rest of the men resided, so that idea was dead before it got off the ground, and just as well. No, a public space would be best, even if it was effectively Medic’s own space also; the infirmary. He would probably be there, he often was at this time of day, working on an experiment or playing with his doves. They wouldn’t be guaranteed privacy, of course, but privacy was hard to come by on the base anyway. Mind made up, Heavy set off for the infirmary.

 

As he drew close to the double doors, he was relieved to hear faint music coming from inside; one of the classical records that the doctor often played on his old gramophone while he worked. Pleasing music, but not sexy or romantic. Little chance of walking in on a tryst. Confidence buoyed, head and heart ready for battle, Heavy rapped on the door briefly, as a courtesy, and pushed it open.

 

Inside, the lights were on, and the doves puttered about on the tops of the cabinets. The medigun was recharging in its rig, and the thing growing in the glass cylinder on one of the lab tables pulsed gently. The Medic stood by his gurney, lab coat off and sleeves rolled up, neat as a pin, his expression mildly surprised as he looked over his shoulder at Heavy. 

 

But Heavy had been wrong; the doctor was not alone here.

 

On the gurney sat a… person. Heavy would have said a man, at first glance, but the shape of the facial features, the softness of the chest over a visible layer of muscle, the perched posture, gave the stranger an androgynous look that threw him completely.

 

No, not a stranger.

 

“Pyro?” Heavy asked.

 

Pyro looked up abruptly at the mention of his name, and his eyes went wide, startled. He reached up to put a hand over his face, and Medic flew to his side.

 

“Hush now, it’s all right! Just our Heavy, you see?”

 

Pyro nodded, but kept his hand over his face, eying Heavy with suspicion through the gap between his thumb and forefinger. This… was odd. Heavy had never really considered what Pyro would look like underneath the mask, yet somehow this timid person sitting in front of him was absolutely not what he had expected. The doctor turned to him with a look that suggested he had better comply or else, and waved Heavy towards the cabinet near the gurney. Heavy obediently crossed to the cabinet and rested his backside against it, folding his arms. Pyro’s gaze followed him, but seemed no more nervous at Heavy’s closer proximity. Heavy looked to the doctor, to see him picking up a small pair of clippers.

 

“What is doktor doing?” Heavy asked.

 

“Pyro needs a hair cut, don’t you,” the Medic said briskly, and Pyro nodded.

 

“yes,” he murmured in a small, husky voice.

 

“Ja, ve can’t let you get too shaggy to fit into your mask properly, can ve,” the Medic said, and he gently smoothed his hand over Pyro’s wavy hair, moving the strands around, planning his approach.

 

“He cannot go to barber?” Heavy asked. Pyro’s eyes cut to him, nothing but curiosity in them, but the look made Heavy realise he had spoken about Pyro like he wasn’t there, and he felt a pang of guilt. He held Pyro’s gaze.

 

“Pyro does not like to be touched, and will only tolerate it from certain people. The Engineer is the favourite, ja?”

 

“yeah.” 

 

“Ja. But he cannot cut hair well. So.” Medic gave Heavy a tight smile, the most pleasant gesture he had made to him for weeks, and began clipping. After a minute or two, the Medic, still clipping, spoke.

 

“If you must refer to Pyro using pronouns, Heavy, they prefer neither masculine nor feminine. ‘They’, rather than ‘he’ or ‘she’. Understand?”

 

Not really, but if it made Pyro happy, then fine. “Da,” he replied. The doctor gave him another quick little smile, but this time is was rather less guarded, and Heavy could see the discomfort in it. The doctor didn’t actually want to smile at him. He didn’t want to like him. He didn’t want Heavy to be there. It stung like a knife. The anger and confrontational energy he had felt upon coming here had melted away, leaving melancholy behind.

 

The Medic continued Pyro’s hair cut in silence, little tufts of dark hair falling onto the gurney as he worked. Pyro’s gaze drifted around the room, as if he - they - barely even noticed what was going on at their scalp. After a little while their eyes settled on Heavy, then drifted down his arms, to his hands. Pyro’s hand lifted, dithered, then reached out and settled on Heavy’s forearm, lightly petting the hair there. Slowly, Heavy stretched his arm out towards Pyro, and the long clammy fingers continued petting away, ruffling the hairs and then smoothing them back down, ruffling and smoothing. Medic glanced in their direction and his eyebrows rose.

 

“Ah, that is soothing, is it?”

 

“mm,” said Pyro, which seemed like an affirmative. Heavy felt vaguely proud.

 

It seemed like a good moment to… do something. Offer an olive branch perhaps.

 

“Have not seen much of you lately, Doktor,” he said, trying to sound confident. “Have you been working a lot?”

 

The Medic replied with a humming sound and a rocking gesture of his hand. “My experiments need time. I’ve been a little bored,” he said, then paused to navigate Pyro’s widow’s peak before adding; “Sniper found me a good place though.”

 

“Place for what?” Heavy asked with trepidation.

 

“For my kegs. Oh yes, I plan to brew some beer,” he said it as if he had simply forgotten to have the conversation with Heavy, and glanced over at him in mild surprise as he said it. The sadness in Heavy’s heart for missing him pressed down harder.

 

“Did not know you could make beer.”

 

“Oh ja, I became rather good at it in my youth. You can try a glass vhen it’s done, yes?”

 

“Please,” Heavy said. 

 

Silence fell back into the room after that, and it felt painfully awkward. Heavy could barely believe it was only a few weeks ago he and the Doctor had been so friendly together, had talked together so easily.

 

The minutes passed, and Medic finished up Pyro’s haircut, brushed the clippings off Pyro’s shoulders, and stepped back to critique his work. After some study, he gave a sharp nod, his back snapping straight, one of those little physical quirks that he was full of, and that Heavy enjoyed seeing so much.

 

Pyro’s hand remained on Heavy’s arm, petting at the hair.

 

“Vell, ve said ve vould review your medications today, didn’t ve,” he said to Pyro, who nodded. “Heavy, if you vouldn’t mind?” The Medic gestured to the door, and Heavy made to rise. But Pyro’s hand clenched on his arm.

 

“no,” Pyro said softly.

 

Medic glanced between Pyro and Heavy looking a little awkward. “You vant him to stay?”

 

“...soothing,” Pyro said.

 

“Vell, all right. If Heavy doesn’t mind.”

 

“Of course,” Heavy replied, thinking that this was possibly the most uncomfortable he had ever felt.

 

Medic went to a filing cabinet and took out a folder, from which he took several papers. He ran his eyes over one sheet, before pulling his rolling chair over to the gurney so he could sit opposite Pyro, and read aloud the names of a few medications, none of which sounded familiar to Heavy.

 

“Any improvement with the visions?” Medic asked. Pyro had visions?

 

“... a little.” 

 

“Fewer of them, or less absorbing?”

 

“... kinda… both,” Pyro replied, and then turned a glowing smile on Heavy. “... sparkly,” they added, after a moment’s consideration.

 

“More sparkly, or less?”

 

“... less, but good less.”

 

“Vell, I think that’s a definite improvement, don’t you agree?”

 

“mm.”

 

Medic checked something off on his paperwork and continued. “Any headaches?”

 

Pyro shook their head.

 

“Aches and pains of any kind? Nausea? Constipation? Diarrhea? How is your appetite? The same as usual?”

 

For each question, Pyro shook their head or nodded, and the Medic seemed satisfied overall, ticking things off and making small notes on the paperwork. Heavy sat still and tried his best not to commit any of this to memory too clearly. He felt such an interloper, and yet Pyro’s fingers never ceased their toying with his arm hair, and their expression never seemed to become uncomfortable. And it was pleasant, in a way, to see the Medic being… normal. A normal doctor, with his patient, instead of some cackling, abominable angel looming over a dying man on the battlefield.

 

“Any problems ve haven’t covered?” the Medic asked finally, and Pyro scrunched up their forehead, thinking hard.

 

“... sleeping,” they said shyly, after a moment.

 

“Sleeping, eh? Too much or too little?”

 

“ … can’t.”

 

“Hmm,” Medic murmured, and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Vell, I vould hesitate to add any more drugs to the mixture, especially as some of those you are on have not been clinically tested. But, there are other vays.”

 

Medic rose from his seat and walked away to rummage in a cabinet on the other side of the lab. Heavy felt a little chill pass through him. He knew of the Medic’s favourite cure for insomnia. Was he really going to try and seduce Pyro? Right here, with Heavy present? How in hell would he even approach them? Heavy looked to Pyro, who was idly watching the doctor move around the room, their face clear of any sort of awareness or artifice. They were innocent, almost childlike. It would be so wrong of the doctor, so very wrong that-

 

Before Heavy could settle his thoughts, the Medic returned holding, not as Heavy had expected some sort of sexual implement, but a sheaf of pages that looked to have been torn out of a journal.

 

“I read this article on ‘white noise’ some time ago,” he said, smoothing the pages out. “It says it is often helpful for people who have difficulty sleeping. You are very sensitive to noise, ja?”

 

Pyro nodded, eyes caught on a diagram printed on one of the pages that looked rather like a large, upside down mixing bowl with a slot cut around its diameter and a wire coming out of it. 

 

“Ja,” Medic continued. “And of course, your room is next to Demo’s. He snores, does he not?”

 

Pyro nodded again and Heavy felt another little pang; how did the Medic know Demo snored?

 

“I’m sure that the Engineer could make one of these devices for you, they don’t appear to need any particularly elusive components. Vould you like me to ask him?”

 

Pyro paused for longer than usual, smiling a small, sweet, secretive little smile. Then they lowered their head bashfully, and whispered; ‘... please.”

 

There was something oddly intimate about the way they said it, and Heavy’s curiosity was only partially sated by Medic’s smiling rejoinder;

“The Engineer, he is your favourite, ja?”

 

Hadn’t he said something like that earlier?

Hadn’t he been sleeping with the Engineer?

 

Pyro nodded and, as he did so, Medic glanced over at Heavy, a fleeting look of unhappiness in his expression. He reached out to lay one hand lightly on Pyro’s shoulder.

 

“Don’t worry, my friend,” he said quietly. “Ve vill get you there.”

 

Pyro nodded vigorously, gave Heavy’s arm a farewell pat, ran their hands over their newly shorn head, and got up from the gurney. They picked up their chem suit from where it was draped cumbersomely over a piece of equipment in one corner and pulled it on with unlikely grace. Then the Medic walked them over to the door, murmured a farewell, and Pyro was gone.

 

Medic turned to Heavy, his expression wooden and not terribly happy. Heavy rose to his feet, feeling the readiness for battle bubble up again. Ridiculous; this was his friend and teammate, no matter that they’d fallen out. But the glint in the Medic’s eyes told that he was spoiling for a fight.

 

“Vhat  _ exactly _ do you vant?” the Medic asked him acidly. 

 

“Want to settle things,” Heavy told him. “Know why you behave so strangely to me, why so upset when you see me and Scout.”

 

The doctor’s face twitched at the mention of Scout’s name and glint in his eyes turned into a glare.

 

“You should know,” he spat, “as I believe ve have discussed such things before, vith the others.”

 

What? “Don’t know what you mean!” Heavy snapped. “Discuss what? It is okay for you to fuck Scout but not for me? You think it is any different? He ask me and I say yes! What is wrong with that?”

 

Medic’s glare deepened, his hands clenching at his sides. The doves shifted uneasily on their perches. “Of course it is different!” he replied through gritted teeth. 

 

“Why? Because you are doctor? Because you didn’t want me? Because you can fuck all of team but I cannot?” His voice got louder and louder until he was shouting, anybody could pass by and hear him, but he couldn’t make himself stop. “Tell me!” he demanded.

 

“You think I am upset because I turned you down?!” the Medic asked, sounding astounded. The tension that had been holding him still thus far snapped, suddenly, and with a cry of anger he lashed out one arm and struck the corner of the gurney hard. With a sharp squeal of metal, the thing swung around on it’s wheels, coming to a halt between the two of them, like a barricade. Heavy couldn’t tell if that was what the Medic had intended to happen or not, but neither of them reached to correct it.

 

“If you don’t want me,” Heavy told him, struggling to keep his voice calm, “okay, I am grown man. Not get upset over it. But you try tell me I cannot sleep with who I want? No. You do not have that right!”

 

Medic rocked back on his heels as if struck, eyes wide. “No,” he said. “But your wife does.”

 

What?

 

_ What?! _

 

“Wife?” Heavy asked.

 

“I have made my opinions on monogamy and cheating absolutely clear to you,” Medic said sternly, and yes, Heavy remembered that conversation around the kitchen table now, the day he had caught Medic with Soldier. That… didn’t explain anything.

 

“Wife?” Heavy asked again.

 

“Yes your wife!” Medic yelled. “You never mention her, you don’t want us to think you have one, but I’ve heard you speak of her in your sleep?”

 

What?

 

“When you hear this?” Heavy asked, so confused he felt dazed.

 

Growling with impatience, Medic rubbed a hand over his eyes. “You and I vere seated next to each other on a plane some months ago, and you began to speak to her in your sleep. ‘Yanna, I vill put up your hair if you mend my shirt, I do not like doing your hair, why can you not do it yourself,’” he sing-songed in a rough approximation of Heavy’s accent.

 

He folded his arms then, glaring at Heavy as if daring him to try and argue.

 

Heavy didn’t want to argue. He could remember the flight, the very same one aboard which he had first recognised his strong attraction to the Medic. He could remember the dream he had had about Yanna, nagging him to help her with her hair. He had had no idea that he ever spoke in his sleep. He felt all the anger, the sour tension, lift away from him like steam.

 

“Doktor-”

 

“There is no excuse for cheating, Heavy. I may not be a man of conventional attitudes, but that is one that I hold to absolutely.”

 

Heavy shook his head. “I agree with you,” he said. “Yanna is one of my sisters.”

 

The doctor’s jaw dropped. “... sisters?”

 

“I have three. Yanna is the middle in age. She asks me to do these things all the time…” He trailed off. The Medic was staring at him like he had just told him the meaning of life.

 

“Your sister,” Medic breathed.

 

“Da. I am not married. I have never been married. Engaged once, but… only for a few weeks.”

 

“You are not married,” the Medic said, again breathily. 

 

“No.” 

 

A few things happened very quickly then.

Medic took two running steps forward and jumped, landing on his knees on the gurney. His momentum shunted the gurney rapidly towards Heavy, slamming to a halt when it’s edge hit his thighs. And then Medic grabbed Heavy by the shoulders and kissed him like he was trying to suck out his tongue.

 

Well… there was perhaps more to be said, but this wasn’t the time.

 

Heavy grabbed Medic by the waist, took his weight and kicked the gurney away, and a moment later Medic’s legs were wrapped around him, those long muscular thighs gripping him tightly, and it was all he could to to keep breathing properly as they kissed like starving men.

 

“All these months…” Medic gasped out between kisses. “All these months…”

 

Heavy transferred his grip to Medic’s buttocks, feeling firm flesh under the thick fabric, and grunted into his mouth. They could have had this months ago, if not for a silly misunderstanding.

 

This; this giddying pleasure of Medic’s strong, energetic body in his arms, the weight of him against his body and the ramping hum of arousal inside him that grew with each brutally pleasurable flick of tongue and slick of lips that the doctor gave him. He was a delicious kisser, passionate and intent and nearly overwhelming-

 

And then his feet where on the floor again, leaving the whole front of Heavy’s torso feeling cold and bereft. Medic threw off his waistcoat and started pulling his tie loose with one hand, grabbed Heavy’s wrist with the other hand and began leading him across the lab.

 

“I cannot go another minute vithout you,” he said in a tense, breathless voice that sent a shiver down Heavy’s spine. “You vill come to bed vith me, ja?”

 

“Yes,” Heavy replied firmly, and followed where Medic led, over to the little door in the corner that led to the small ward. Not the location he would have chosen for their first time together, as the ward was rather poky and drab and antiseptic smelling, but if that was the nearest place to find a bed, and the doctor really couldn’t wait to have him-

 

And then the doctor was unlocking and opening another door on the far side of the ward that Heavy had never noticed before, and they passed through.

 

So  _ this _ was where the Medic’s quarters were!

 

It looked different to the other rooms, which were all more or less the same. The ceiling in here was higher and the only windows were narrow, near to the top of the external walls, just like those in the infirmary. Instead of the cheap, newish furniture to be found on the rest of the base, the desk and dresser and well packed book cases in there were real wood and quite old, battered but good quality. The bed was a large, saggy mattress on a formidable looking brass frame.

 

The Medic gave him only a moment to look around, then slammed the door shut behind them and dragged Heavy over to the bed. They staggered across the room together, peeling one another out of their clothes as they went, snatching kisses and running their hands over each patch of bare skin. Before he realised they had reached the bed, Heavy found himself shoved down to sit on it’s edge, and he took the opportunity to grab off his boots and kick his legs free of his clothes, while Medic did the same in front of him, balancing with one hand on the bedside cabinet.

 

The Doctor was glorious naked, so much so that it was a shock to look at him in such a state, even after having seen him barely dressed that night when all this had first started. He was completely unselfconscious as well, which Heavy had always found terribly attractive. He bent to reach inside his bedside cabinet and removed from it a plastic jar which he tossed onto the bed, then turned to Heavy, straddled his lap, and kissed him again.

 

Heavy almost wanted to tell him to stop so he could double check that this was really happening, but doing so would mean he had to let go, stop kissing, stop enjoying the press of naked, warm, hairy skin against him. He felt one of the doctor’s hands leave his shoulder, the sound of the jar lid popping off a moment later, them Medic was kneeling up over Heavy’s thighs. Heavy ran his hands down the Medic’s back and cupped his buttocks, holding them spread while the doctor prepared himself, making small moans of pleasure into Heavy’s mouth.

 

Most of his lovers had had to take a good deal of time to get themselves ready for him, had had to be coaxed and gentled along, reassured and allowed to set the pace, or there would be no chance of them getting him inside them.

Not so the Medic.

 

In the space of a moment, Heavy found himself shoved back onto the bed and mounted in one smooth movement, most of his cock taken into the Medic’s tight, searing body in that first downward push. He cried out, in surprise as much as anything, and on top of him the Medic let out a gleeful wail.

 

“Ah! Fich!”

 

Heavy grabbed him by the hips and tried vainly to make him slow down, convinced he was going to hurt himself, but Medic resisted, shaking off Heavy’s grip and lifting himself up, dropping down with perfect force and a sweet, clever roll of his hips that had Heavy inside him to the root. Heavy cried out again, Medic moaned loudly enough to rattle the windows.

 

For a few glorious minutes Medic rode him energetically, Heavy arching underneath him to meet his strokes, until the Medic let out a yell in garbled German, then another in garbled English, and finally said something that Heavy could understand.

 

“Vant you on… on top of me… bitte!” he gasped out, and made to lift himself off Heavy. Before he could do so, Heavy seized hold of him, rolled his weight forward, and heaved up onto his feet, their bodies still slotted tightly together. 

 

“ _ Gott _ ,” Medic growled, and clawed desperately at him while Heavy got them back onto the bed, Medic on his back in the centre of the mattress, his gorgeous legs stretched around Heavy’s waist. He pulled almost free of him, and then thrust home in a long, firm stroke. Medic wailed like he was dying and Heavy froze.

 

He’d always been careful with lovers, all too aware of how much harm he could do if he wasn’t. He couldn’t be too rough. After all that confusion and misery, he couldn’t ruin this now by being careless.

 

Medic’s eyes flickered and he stared up at Heavy.

 

“What you just did…”

 

“Da. I’m sorry, I-”

 

“Do it again.”

 

“Uh…”

 

“Now!” Medic yelled, and kicked at the small of Heavy’s back with both heels.

 

Okay, fine.

 

Heavy thrust back into him, just as hard, and Medic shrieked like a banshee. It had to hurt, even with the Medic’s freakishly high pain tolerance, but Medic just grinned and demanded more, arching his body up to meet each of Heavy’s thrusts. He’d never fucked anyone quite like this, not so vigorously, and it felt incredible, his heart pounding and his veins throbbing with pleasure. Their pace quickened, the slap of their bodies coming together was ringingly loud. Medic was panting, howling ecstatically, his cries so captivating, so wonderful, that Heavy was having trouble keeping it together.

 

And then he started yelling “Harder! Gott! Harder!”

 

He was kicking at Heavy’s back again. Heavy knew damn well he wasn’t really thinking straight, not given how tremendously aroused he was, but surely it wouldn’t do any harm to give him what he wanted?

 

He reared up onto his knees, dragged Medic’s hips up off the bed, and plunged into him with all his might.

 

Medic  _ screamed _ ! Heavy froze once more, the sound like a dash of ice water. But the look on Medic’s handsome face was nothing short of absolute joy.

 

“Again! Just like that!”

 

Again.

 

“Oh mein Gott!”

 

Again.

 

“Perfekt!”

 

Again.

 

“Ach, Gott,  _ Heavy _ !”

 

After that it was all incoherent noises, his long back arched, his hands clawing at the brass headboard, while Heavy pounded into him, pulling at his hips to add impact to each thrust, sweat pouring off both their bodies, Heavy’s lungs working like bellows, Medic’s voice alternating between semi-coherent demands and almost totally incoherent pleas…

 

And then there was a sudden moment of silence…

 

...before Medic let out a wail like a martyred saint, and came all over them both.

 

Oh god it felt spectacular. Heavy swore he could feel every tiny movement of Medic’s body as his orgasm washed through him, and he let the sensation drag him down too, coming apart under the wild, swarming wave of pleasure.

 

Medic was in his arms then, kissing him drowsily. They were both lying down, one of the bedsheets spread over them, though Heavy couldn’t really remember having moved.

 

“You are all right?” he asked quietly.

 

“Of course I am,” Medic replied, his voice hoarse. “I feel vonderful.”

 

“That had to have hurt.”

 

“Mmmm… ja,” the Medic purred, smiling.

 

Heavy wanted to press, make certain that he wasn’t injured. But then, Medic wasn’t really one to lie about something like that. “Good,” he said, and they went back to kissing for a while.

 

It was lovely, not just the delightful lassitude of a post-orgasmic body, but the emotional reassurance, that the pain of the last few weeks had been neither of their fault, no lines over stepped. Just a misunderstanding. A jagged rock on the path to happiness. Hopefully.

 

“Doktor?”

 

“Mm?”

 

“Earlier, we talk about monogamy.”

 

“Ja?”

 

Heavy moved back a little so he could look at the Medic properly, and Medic raised his head to pay attention as he did so.

 

“Vhat is it?”

 

“If you want… I feel… sleeping around, no problem, is okay. But for lovers, no. If we are to be lovers, I want you to myself.”

 

Medic propped himself up on one elbow and smiled wolfishly at Heavy. “Oh, you think you can satisfy me all by yourself, do you?” he purred.

 

“Da,” Heavy replied simply.

 

Medic quirked an eyebrow, then gave a little laugh. “Ja, you probably can, can’t you,” he said. “And can I expect that same loyalty from you?”

 

“Of course. I will not cheat on you,” Heavy promised. Medic lowered himself back down onto the mattress, and Heavy pulled him close.

 

“I vill have to tell Engineer that I cannot continue our little meetings,” Medic sighed. “But Scout vill be looking for a new man, I am sure. Maybe the two of them can vork something out. At least for the time being.”

 

“Da,” Heavy replied, nuzzling the Medic’s soft hair. “I will explain to Scout not to ask either of us again.”

 

“Gut,” the Medic said brightly, and he pressed himself closer to kiss Heavy again.

 

On the other side of the bedroom door, the doves were chasing around the ward and the infirmary, warbling at one another. In another part of the base, half the team were singing drunkenly together. Somewhere not terribly far away, there was an explosion, and a short bout of cheering.

 

The two men in the bed noticed none of this, lost in happiness together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY IT IS DONE!  
> I seriously can't believe it took me nearly a year to get all this posted, I originally estimated a couple of months! I ended up writing a load of other stories this year though (not fan fic, I'm trying to get a portfolio of 'legit' fiction together) and I ended up getting really disorganised.  
> Thank you to everyone who stuck with it through the slow posting. I hope it was worth it! Things got a little cheesy there at the end, but come on, it's me. You knew how it was going to turn out, right?  
> Please let me know what you thought, you know I love that shit.


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